


You've Got to Pay for What You Break

by all_the_kings_ham



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bad Decisions, Brotherly Bonding, Christmas Time, Domestic, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Family Feels, Gambling, HA! That's actually a tag??, M/M, Sassy Castiel, Sharing a Bed, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, Writer Lucifer (Supernatural), and for man-drama later, dumb boys being dumb like their getting paid for it, for the fun of fooling around, friends to what the hell are we doing, gambling with love?, just some light fooling around, mentions of mafia and other shady dealings, no feelings wasted between our two grumpy boys, ok, should that be a warning?, so here we go agin, so if it's not your thing just give a long blink and you'll miss it, stubborn boys, stupid stuff I'm doing instead of being an adult, sucker bet, the Luci and Dean touching bit is very short lived, this takes place during christmas, who is so incredibly over all of the by the time he's introduced to the story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-18
Updated: 2019-01-28
Packaged: 2019-06-12 14:30:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 27
Words: 165,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15341841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/all_the_kings_ham/pseuds/all_the_kings_ham
Summary: Lucifer takes a stupid bet he has no chance of winningSam agrees to an obviously questionable deal for a bit of cashAnd everything goes sideways





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> *coughcough*
> 
> I was going to wait until the end of the month to start posting.  
> If you look at your calendars you'll be proud to see that I made it until the 18th  
> I'm just... just gunna give myself a gold star for effort, and some finger pistols in y'all's direction, and retreat into my dark little cave
> 
> but seriously, thank you to my mighty beta-reader Coplins who's humored me for the last year while I've been sporadically handing her chapters of this because I was working on it while I should have been focusing on another story all together.

It's not that Sam was unaware of the man sitting at the end of the bar. It would have been hard to miss the sleepy eyed hipster with the battered paperback book who'd been taking up the last seat at the counter for most of the night. According to Tessa, who was working the far side of the large L shaped bar, the man had only ordered himself a single rum and coke when he'd first sat down around 8, and had been working on the same drink ever since. Maybe he was just waiting for someone… for two hours. He certainly hadn’t come into the dive bar on a Friday night to find a quiet place to read. 

Sam wouldn’t even have given the man a second thought except that Tessa was bringing back the bourbon that she’d only just walked off with. 

“They changed their mind?” He hated the idea of tossing the untouched liquor down the sink, even if it was incredibly cheap liquor, just because someone decided that they suddenly wanted something different. 

“Girls with the sorority sweatshirts and pushup bras ordered it for my cave dweller down at the end and he said no thanks.” She glanced over her shoulder to the offending man, who looked to be nearly halfway done with his book, then back up at Sam. “Do I give it back to the girls?”

Tessa was still their newest bartender. Mostly just serving drinks made by one of the more experienced coworkers or pouring pitchers of beers to go to the tables of frat boys that were sitting out closer to the televisions. Sam didn’t mind helping to train her, she learned fast and got on well enough with the customers, but sometimes her questions made him pause. 

“Yeah, I mean, they paid for it.”

“I just don’t want to make them sad.” She sighed, balancing the edge of her nearly empty tray against a hip. “I know one of them from my pathology lab. She’s going through a bad break up, I think being turned down is going to be rough on her.” 

“Yeah, but if her and her friends think that he took the drink then you’re going to make it real awkward for all of them.”

“Would you mind… maybe being the one to break the news to girls?” Her big dark eyes were so deer like and sweet as she looked up at Sam with such hope. “I think they’d take it better coming from you.”

“Why?”

Tessa gave him that look. That look that his own mother, and aunt, and cousin Joe, had all been so good at giving him for years now. That ‘ _ how can someone so pretty be so stupid’ _ sort of look - or at least that’s what his aunt called it. 

He took the tray and slipped out from behind the bar, leaving the pulling of drafts to the new girl while he took the tray and made his way through the noisy sort of crowd. He dropped off the pair of imported lagers that the boys in polos had ordered before sitting down just a few minutes ago, and then rounded on the table of three girls who looked like they’d come straight from class. Hoodies and leggings, but oh those hoodies were unzipped to a latitude obviously meant to catch the eyes of possibly interested men folk. 

“Hey there, ladies,” Sam donned his most charming smile, quietly bracing as all eyes were suddenly on him. “Looks like our bookish friend doesn’t realise what he’s passing up on tonight. But next shot is on the house, alright? Just let me or Tessa know who you’d like it to go to.”

After a brief whispered discussion the girls invited Sam to join them, all smiles and giggles and this wasn’t the first or the last time that he’d turn down such an offer. He had to get back to making drinks, and then sorry but no, after work he had homework to do. He was polite, but firm as he retreated to the safety that only the worn wooden countertop could offer him. 

“Thanks, Sam.” Tessa flashed a grin as she arranged brown bottles onto the tray he handed her. “I don’t suppose you want to take that charm of yours to the lump at the end of the counter? See if he wants a refill?”

“That’s your secontion,” Sam shook his head. “You’ll have to learn to handle the weirdo hipsters all on your own.”

“He’s so grumpy, though.”

“Yeah, rum and coke for one on a Friday night will do that to you.”

And work kept going. More and more of the college crowd coming and going, all wanting cheap drinks and loud laughs as they enjoyed the start of their weekend. It started to slow down a little after one in the morning, less new faces, and the people who’d been hanging out slowly made their ways to other locations. Most of the people at least. Tessa’s lawn ornament remained firmly in place and as far as Sam could tell she hadn’t been able to talk him into so much as a refill on his now warm drink.

Bumping her shoulder into Sam’s side, Tessa smiled up at him. “Hey, it’s that time. You need me to take care of anything before I head out?”

There were maybe eight or ten people left in the bar at this point. He’d be locking the doors in another half hour and kicking out the stragglers and wiping down the tables. Sam could handle the rest of closing on his own. “I’m alright. Get home safe, ok?”

She grinned, pulling off her apron and heading for the back room to get her jacket and purse. 

Sam got to lining up the clean glasses for tomorrow’s shift, raising his voice to be heard over the tipsy chatter of slightly sloshed college kids, “Last call! You want something come get it now.” 

He poured one last pitcher of beer for the frat boys who he’d also be calling a cab for soon enough. A couple highballs and one vodka sour for a small group whose faces he recognised as part of the regular Friday night crowd who regularly stayed too late and left bad tips. 

“See you Sunday,” Tessa grinned at him as she shuffled past, suited up against the light snow that fell with stilted slowness and piled up on the outside of the windowsills that flanked the front door.

“There’s a game tomorrow.” He reminded her, secretly very relieved that he wouldn’t be here, in the same sort of way that he felt sympathy for Tessa and what was sure to be a hell of a night shift. 

“It’s not my first game night, Sam.” She grinned tiredly around a few more parting words as she pulled her scarf tight and stepped out into the night. 

Sam started wiping down the counter, making his way slowly from one end to the other. “Hey, last call.” He paused when he neared the unmovable man with the book. “Can I get you anything?”

Dark framed glasses that sat low on his nose almost hid some startling pale grey eyes as the man looked up. A mess of blond hair that might have had a bit of curl if it had been allowed to grow, and stubble in a way that looked more like neglect than any kind of conscious style choice. He watched Sam for a heartbeat too long before glancing down at his still half full glass. 

“I’m not against another one,” he finally seemed to decide, nudging his old drink in Sam’s direction. 

“Still rum and coke?” He picked up the glass, dumping its watery and warm contents into the sink. 

The man slipped a finger between the pages of his book, marking his place, “Dealer’s choice.”

“Well, I’ve been told I make a very good Old Fashioned.” 

The man nodded, and honest, Sam was just glad to get some kind of response from the person who had spent the last few hours grumping at poor Tessa who honestly didn’t deserve the cold shoulder.

Sam busied his hands with mixing together the bitters and bourbon. “So, you get kicked out of the local library, or what?”

“Is making small talk part of the job description or do you just naturally tend towards cute little conversations with strangers?”

“I…I really hate small talk, actually.” Sam smiled to himself and slid the finished drink towards the other man. “So I guess it’s more of a side effect of the job.”

The book was set aside and Sam couldn’t tell from the missing cover what it was, only that it had been well worn and mistreated over the years. The blonde took a slow sip of his drink before nodding to Sam in an approving sort of way. “I don’t know if I’d call it  _ very good _ but it’s a pretty decent Old Fashioned.”

Definitely grumpy. 

Tessa had been very accurate in her choice of words. 

“I’ll try harder next time.” Sam promised as he shuffled away, wanting to finish up cleaning so he wouldn’t have to stay too late. This was only his second winter in New York and he was still not well adjusted by the below freezing temperatures. The only thing he liked less than the snow and ice was taking the public transit in the middle of the night to get back to the dorms. It just seemed to be part of everyone’s life out here, though, and he figured that in time he’d get used to it. Eventually.

He made his rounds, collecting empty bottles and glasses and pitchers, handing out people’s tabs and collecting wads of crumpled bills in trade. It was easier to kick out the regulars. They knew him, he knew them, some of them from classes at the university and not just here at work. The man at the bar was a bit of a different story, though. 

For some reason he didn’t get the hint that it was time to leave, even after Sam shuffled out the rest of the patrons; Mr. Grumpy was still at the bar, face back in his book. 

Sam started stacking chairs up onto table so he’d have room to sweep the floor. “Hey, stranger, it’s time to settle your tab. I’m locking up for the night.”

“Luci.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m not  _ ‘hey, stranger’ _ . I have a name.” The man turned the page in his book slowly.

Sam frowned, glancing over. “And that name is... Lucy?”

“It’s a nickname,” he sounded distracted as he pushed the bridge of his glasses a little further up his nose. “I mean, it’s not a great nickname, but at least it’s better than  _ Sam _ . The kids must have teased you endlessly in school.”

Usually this late into the night Sam had to fake his smiles. He was tired, mentally and physically after spending the last eight hours on his feet - but he couldn’t help the grin he felt at the odd and uninvited teasing. “Yeah…I mean if only I’d been given a more normal name like  _ Lucy _ .”

“We can’t all be so lucky.” He turned to the last page in his book, seemingly determined to finish it tonight.

Sam figured that the man almost probably wasn’t here to rob the place, and he wasn’t in the way of cleaning up, so he wasn’t hurting anything by keeping that bar stool warm. The self proclaimed  _ Luci _ got to sit and finish his book while Sam swept up wayward drink straws and scraps of paper and whatever else the customers had dragged in off the street during the night. 

Sports Center was still playing on the flat screens. Replays of some college basketball highlights running with the commentary turned down so low it was almost on mute. The lack of people talking meant that Sam could actually hear some of what was playing on the tv over the  _ shoosh shoosh _ sounds of the old broom. Cleaning was methodical. Five nights a week he was here tidying up after chasing out all the customers. It didn’t require any thought, all these nice mechanical movements while he let his muscles take him in the regular path around the narrow bar that had been sandwiched in between an over priced pawn shop and a Starbucks.

Part of him had remained aware that he wasn’t alone in the room, but only a very small part of him, because when the other man spoke Sam nearly dropped his broom. 

“So, do you have a Saturday class or are you working your second job tomorrow?”

“I’m sorry,” Sam snorted softly on a laugh. “Do… do we know each other?” The other man calling him by name wasn’t that big of a deal. It wasn’t on Sam’s apron or anything, but plenty of regulars called him by name, so Luci must have heard it at some point in the evening. Other aspects of Sam’s life were typically kept a little more personal, however. 

“The blonde at the bar getting a mojito around ten-thirty asked if you were free after work. You told her no that you had studying to do.” He let his book fall closed, setting his glasses down on top of the missing cover as he took up the drink that Sam had only recently made for him. “She asked about tomorrow and you told her that you were busy.”

Sam’s laughter turned to a small frown. 

Luci closed his eyes for a moment, seeming to enjoy his small sip before talking again. “So I know you’re a student. I also know that in this town you can’t afford a cardboard box to live in off the shitty tips that you must be making at a dive bar like this, so you probably have a second job. Since you told your coworker that you wouldn’t be in here tomorrow night to help her during the rush after the game - I was curious what it was that would be keeping you so busy tomorrow.”

“Yeah, ok, Sherlock.” Restless, Sam turned back to his sweeping. “If you’re asking me out, I’m flattered, but also not into guys, so…”

“I’m not interested in a date.” He set his mostly empty glass down. “I just wanted to know if it was work or school keeping you so very occupied this close to the holidays.”

Sam considered asking what this man was hoping to get out of his possible answer. Slightly stalkery questions aside, he was oddly used to personal kinds of questions from bar patrons who didn’t understand proper social boundaries, because after all, a bartender is not an actual person but merely as a fixture in the establishment that they were giving money to. It always seemed to make people feel like they were allowed to take certain liberties and cross unspoken lines. 

“It’s more work at my second job.” He shrugged it off. “I was lucky enough not to have weekend classes this semester.” His hell of a semester that was thankfully almost over.

Luci turned around on his stool, leaning his elbows back on the bar behind him. “Only work? Fantastic. Then you won’t be missing anything important if you call in sick.”

“Look, man, whatever you’re hoping to get from me―you’re barking up the wrong tree.”

“I’ve got a proposition for you.”

“Whoa now.” Sam couldn’t help the almost nervous laughter. “Wrong damn tree in the wrong damn forest.”

“Not that kind of proposition.” He made a face, nose wrinkling, lines on his forehead echoing his frown. “If I was going to pay for that then I sure as hell wouldn’t be picking you, so slow down.”

“You’re the one making propositions to strange men in bars.”

“It’s a business proposition.”

“Not interested.” Sam cut him off, wanting nothing to do with whatever nonsense was going on. It was only too clear to him now that this guy staying all night had nothing to do with finishing a book and almost definitely everything to do with getting Sam alone. It made him uneasy. “If you don’t mind, I’ve got to finish closing up, so...” He nodded towards the door, less than subtle about what he meant.

“Hear me out―”

“No thanks.”

“I’m in town for a family reunion…  _ thing _ . I need to bring someone with me and honestly I can’t think of anyone who would be more upsetting to show up with than someone like you.”

Slightly offended, and not sure why, Sam made a face. “Ok, wow. You know how to sweet talk a guy, don’t you?”

“It’s not personal. I’ve got nothing against you. From what I watched tonight you seem like a fine and upstanding sort of gentleman. However my family all happen to be very worried about appearances and only take their heads out of their own asses long enough to count their money. I happen to think it would be hilarious to show up tomorrow night with a book smart, floppy haired college boy, who bites his nails, has at least one tattoo, and works two jobs just to pay the bills. It would rub them all kinds of the wrong way.”

Self consciously Sam pressed a hand over his heart and the complicated black design that did on occasion peek out from under the collar line of his v-necked shirts. “In the nicest way possible, you’re weird, and no thank you.”

“I’ll make it worth your while. Seeing as I’m asking you to miss a night of work and all. I just need a fake boyfriend for a few hours. No funny business.”

“I… I don’t know how to tell you no any more clearly than I already have.”

“There’s twenty thousand dollars in it for you.”

Sam choked on his own breath, something that took some definite skill. For an offer like that there were no words. All he could do was lightly strangle the handle of his broom and wonder what the man had  _ actually  _ said to him, because there was no way in hell that he’d heard right. Twenty thousand was nearly a year's worth of rent. It was a new car. It was tuition for the next two semesters. It wasn’t something that you casually offer a stranger in a bar. 

“Unless you don’t think that’s enough?” Luci kept that thin line of a frown as he watched Sam sputtering. “I’m not sure what the going rate for platonic male escorts are these days.”

‘Male escort’, platonic or not, was not a word combination that Sam had been prepared to hear right then. “I, uh, I guess that depends on your definition of platonic?”

The man let his head fall back for a moment, the long line of his throat bobbing as he swallowed down a laugh. “How about we go with the normal definition on this one? Let’s not go messing with the perfection that was Merriam Webster.”

Standing there with his broom and a lot of silence, Sam looked over the man guarding the corner of the bar. The scuffed boots and faded jeans went well with his scruffy appearance. The Armani logo on the side of his glasses and the very tailored fit to his button up shirt said that it was possible that Luci here might actually have the kind of money that he was talking about throwing around. It was one of those things about New York that Sam still hadn’t gotten used to. The ridiculous amount of money that people out here took for granted was disturbing at least. The same for the strange way that some of the rich kids flaunted their status and others just sort of slummed it with all the regular people like it wasn’t a big deal that they had gone to boarding school, or own trust funds, or had summer homes out in the country. 

He could come out and say that he sort of had a girlfriend. Not that him and Madison were technically dating, just like they’d never technically met, but they’d been a sort of ‘thing’ for the last two years, as much as an internet relationship is a ‘thing’. She’d laugh at him if he ever told her what he was considering saying yes to. She wouldn’t be mad, she’d just laugh and laugh her ass off and Sam would feel like a bigger idiot than usual. 

Antsy for some reason, he looked out at the darkened neon signs in the windows like he expected to see someone out there looking back in. Someone who knew better than he did. Who could cast some weighty judgment his way and make him reconsider.

“How… how much of a fake boyfriend are we talking about here?”

Another sharp bite of laughter was cut short. “Is there a standardized scale for this kind of thing that I should refer to before I give you an answer?”

“I mean… what exactly are you expecting?” The fact that he was even considering this spoke volumes to how much Sam could use the money. Twenty thousand dollars would go an awful, awful long way. 

“Lying to my family with me about the fact that I only just met you tonight. Pretending that we’ve known each other and been together for a while and that we’re happy about it. Being some fine arm candy in the process? In the least gay way possible, I happen to think you’d look very nice in a tux―”

“I don’t own a tux.”

Luci waved it off like the void in Sam’s wardrobe was of such little consequence to this plan of his. “I just want to upset some socialites that I haven’t seen in almost a decade, that I didn’t want to see this weekend, but was obligated to come visit with just the same.” 

Still unsure why he’d been singled out for such a ridiculous proposition, Sam thought that maybe he’d started to understand at least the littlest bit of it. “You’re sort of the black sheep of your family, aren’t you?”

The barest hint of a smile curled at one corner of his mouth, a lopsided sort of expression. “Yeah, you could say that.”

“I’ve got a brother like you.” Sam slowly shook his head. “He likes to rub people the wrong way too.”

“There’s a certain satisfaction in watching people get their panties all in a twist. I can’t lie.”

Pissing people off sure wasn’t one of Sam’s hobbies, but he’d watched his big brother taking some strange kind of pleasure in it for as far back as he could remember. Luci here was wholly a stranger, and with any luck would remain so, but a bit of his motivation suddenly felt a bit more familiar.

Familiar but still very unwelcome.

“Are you staying at the dorms on campus?”

Sam tensed at the question. “None of your damn business, no offence.”

“I just want to know where to pick you up tomorrow.”

“I didn’t say yes.”

Luci let out a slow breath and pushed himself up from his stool. “Didn’t say you did. But it’s twenty thousand and all you’ve got to do is eat some lobster and drink very old wine while whispering back and forth and pretending that we’ve known each other for long enough to actually like each other. You don’t seem like the kind of idiot who’d turn down this sort of offer. You don’t seem like any kind of idiot, which is why I picked you instead of some different studious giant.” He pulled out a wallet and left two bills on the counter along with what looked like a business card. “You can text me the name of the dorm when you make up your mind. I’ll pick you up out front at three.”

“Three is a little early for dinner, don’t you think?”

“It’s upstate and the earlier we get there the earlier we get to leave.” Glasses and wallet were tucked into a pocket of the jacket that he pulled on.

Sam felt only remotely concerned when Luci walked past him towards the front door and it became startlingly apparent that they were near the same height. It wasn’t every day that Sam met a fellow giant. Though that long legged solidarity did not sway him.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“I didn’t say yes.” Sam insisted.

“Yeah, but everyone does eventually.” That crooked little smile of his came back for just a breath before it vanished again. “Goodnight, Sam. See you tomorrow.” 

Only too happily, Sam locked the door behind the unexpectedly odd ending to his night. And it all only got a touch stranger when he made his way to the counter to discover that it wasn’t ten, or even twenty dollars that had been left behind, but two hundred. Two hundred bucks and a little rectangle of paper with a handwritten cell phone number scrawled in blue ink.

He should have tossed the card in the garbage when he took it out to the dumpster in back. Somehow the number ended up coming home with him on the last bus of the night, though. The catch twenty two of an offer was laid to rest on his desk beside his cell phone where he plugged it in to charge overnight. 

Sam stared at the offer for most of his breakfast, and it taunted him while he tried to get in a bit of studying before work. He did his best to ignore it, and it only sort of kind of worked up until he got a reminder from his roommate that rent was due next week. Rent that Sam could pay, but would mean that he’d be be living off top ramen and apples until his next payday.

**-Benedict Hall** he typed out the two words into his phone that felt so very much like looking down the barrel of a firing squad. It would mean calling into his second job, telling Reese that he couldn’t make it tonight. The garage could still run without his capable hands for one night. It’s not like he could lie to his boss and say he had a date, but he could use tomorrow’s tests as a good excuse as to why he couldn’t come in. Being a good student, studying, certainly not ditching his buddies to pull apart cars on their own while he was out eating lobster with a very strange stranger. 

It took him nearly five minutes of staring at the text to hit send, and a wave of regret slammed into him the moment that he did. 

It could have been worse. 

If he’d known fully what he was getting himself into with that singular text, then the subsequent regret would have been enough to choke on.

.:.

Twenty four hours and two bad decisions earlier :

“You look like a hobo.” Gabriel talked around the edge of the green straw pressed to his lower lip.

Glancing down at himself, at the tatters in his jeans that exposed his left knee, the ratty canvas sneakers that showed off the color of his socks, the holes in his tshirt and the faded creases in his old leather jacket, Nick frowned. “I do not.”

“You  _ smell _ like a hobo.” His brother wrinkled his nose. “Did you fly coach or something?”

“Excuse me if I don’t feel a need to lounge in first class like some kind of spoiled little asshat.” He cradled his simple black coffee between his hands, enjoying the warmth as the only nice part of this day so far. 

“It’s like what, a four hour flight from Paris to here? What were you doing, rolling across the other unwashed passengers, or is this just that European musk I’ve heard tales of?”

“I don’t smell.” But Nick was making a mental plan to shower and maybe change into something a little less casual once he got back to the hotel. He wasn’t ready to return to this kind of lifestyle. He hoped to never be in a position to settle back into these horrible habits that his baby brother flaunted so openly. It was just shy of disgusting, but that was sort of Gabriel in a nutshell.

The gold Rolex watch flashing in the cold afternoon sun as Gabriel very deliberately showed off the small accessory that probably cost about the same amount as the over priced suit that he wore. The opulence clashing slightly with a rather fresh looking bruise along the right side of his jaw that neither of them were talking about. If it was any of Nick’s business then his brother would have said something. “How long are you staying?”

“Long enough to appease the parentals and then I’m fucking off. You know I hate it here.”

Gabe sighed and sank lower into his chair, hugging himself against the cold and huddling into his coat. “You never change, do you?”

“Says the full grown man who’s still getting the same haircut that he’s had since he was a tween.”

“Haha.” He dragged out so very dryly. “I see you’ve still got that stunning sense of humor, Luci. I guess I should be happy that you’re predictable at least.”

It had been years since anyone had called him by that name and inwardly Nick cringed at the wash of gross nostalgia. 

“You going to call Lilith while you’re out here?”

Nick made a soft retching noise at the mention of his ex. She was old news. So old that it had been a decade since he’d laid eyes on that force of nature masquerading as a woman. “God no.”

“Who are you bringing to dinner then?”

He frowned and sipped on the coffee that burned his tongue, watching as cars and cabs rolled past with the lazy sort of congestion that the traffic out here always seemed to have. “... No one.” 

“You can’t go stag to their anniversary dinner.” Gabriel lectured. “It’s so trasy.”

“Look, I don’t even want to be here in the first place. And if mom hadn’t been so… if she was feeling  _ better  _ then I wouldn’t be here at all.”

“Don’t be like that, Luci.” He shook his head, his shaggy hair falling free from where he’d tucked it behind his ears. “I’ll find someone for you.”

“Don’t you dare.” He drew a sharp breath, hating how easy it was to talk to his brother after all this time. How comfortable he was with this rough teasing. “If I wanted company for tomorrow night then I would find company for tomorrow night. But funny enough New York is full of people I don’t want to sit next to while eating dinner. Present company included.”

“Please. We both know it’s because you turned into some kind of stank ass recluse over the years. All charm gone along with your personal hygiene habits.”

Nick had showered that morning before his flight. This was just his brother’s annoying way of needling him and saying that he didn’t like the smell of his deodorant.

“No. It’s because there’s no one I want to bring.”

“Sure, honey. Everyone’s just clamoring to get a slice of that fine white trash chic you’ve got going for yourself now. You’re practically beating them off with a stick.”

“Shut up. You look like a muppet.”

Gabe’s laughter hissed out between his teeth, a bubbling happy sort of noise that he tried to hide in his overpriced Starbucks drink. 

“Look, I know you must have shook your babysitter just to come out and see me today, shortstack. But unlike you, I’m actually allowed to go places on my own without a chaperone.”

“I’m not talking about a nanny. Though we did have one or two smoking hot tutors back in the day. I’m talking about a fine piece of ass to flaunt around town. Good company to go home with you after dinner. To keep you all kinds of company late into the night...”

“How  _ is _ that engagement going for you, Gabe?”

“Kali?” He looked startled, the pale arch of his eyebrows darting upwards. “We’re still very happily engaged.”

“What’s it been, fifteen years now?”

“Thirteen.”

“Ah, lucky number thirteen. You two crazy kids ever going to take the plunge and make it official? Or you’re just going to keep roadhauling this fuck up until you’re both old and grey?”

“Don’t sound so bitter about it. Christ, Luci. I know it’s done you wrong in the past, but hear me when I say that being in love isn’t a death sentence. It’s beautiful thing.”

“Says the man who still getting cold feet about marrying his highschool sweetheart.”

“We’re getting around to it. Don’t you go projecting your bitterness towards romance onto me. I love her, and I love being in love with her, and I love that she loves being in love with me. It’s amazing, you dried up and bitter son of a bitch” 

“Don’t  _ you  _ go trying to make it more complicated than it really is. Girls fall in love with money and broad shoulders. You are sort of lacking in those qualities, and maybe that’s why she keeps putting off changing her last name to yours.”

Gabriel mouthed a few choice words before finishing off his drink. Mocking, but quiet because they could both see a real fight rearing up between them, even after so many years apart. 

They let the silence stretch thin, listening to the roaring white noise of traffic and pedestrians. Nick settled into his coffee and the way that it warmed him from the inside out. He was good to just have a bit of quiet between them. After a decade apart it sort of felt natural. 

“You still got that gambling problem, Luci?”

“Do you?”

“Baby, it’s only a problem if you lose.” He tossed his empty cup into the nearby trash can. “And you always lost to me.”

“Wow. That’s some selective memory you’ve got there.”

“Yeah?”

Nick saw the bait and he hated that he couldn’t help but rise to it. “Yeah. You’re the one who doesn’t have access to his own stocks and accounts anymore because he’s so damn impulsive and unlucky. I heard they have you on a monthly allowance now. That must be tough.”

“That was a bad run a few years back.” He waved it off like it was no big deal that he’d gambled away over three million dollars during a weekend in Vegas. “I’m back in my game. Can’t lose. Which means you know what comes next.”

“A friendly wager?”

“A friendly wager.” Gabriel grinned, showing every last one of his perfectly straight teeth. 

“All right. What’ve you got?”

“It’s real simple,” the look on his face made it seem like Gabriel already considered the whole thing done and over and himself the winner. “I bet that you’re going to come to the anniversary dinner alone tonight because you can’t find a single soul to go with you.”

“I could literally pull in anyone off the street and they’d be happy to go with me.”

“Anyone he says? I don't want to see you with just anyone. I want someone gorgeous and stunning and fawning over you.”

“ _ Anyone _ . I just don’t want to.”

“Twenty thousand dollars says you can’t.”

Nick laughed. “I’m not taking that bet.”

“Because you know you can’t do it.”

“Are you drunk?”

“No, I’m not drunk.”

“Then why don’t you brush that floppy hair out of your ears and listen to me when I tell you that if I wanted to―I could have any person in this god forsaken city hanging off my arm, eating out of my hand, professing their love for me, by tomorrow night. It doesn’t take much to get some shallow ass socialite to fall in love with a bank account.”

“Tomorrow night? That’s being a bit ambitious, don’t you think?” Gabriel gave him a deeply sympathetic and patronising sort of look. “I’m a bit forgiving of all those personality flaws of yours that are going to make this pretty damn impossible. Out of the goodness of my heart, I’ll give you until Christmas to find someone, just so you have a fighting chance. Hell, I’ll even give you until New Years, just so you don’t have to travel home a loser with all that terrible holiday traffic.”

“I’m not staying here for two weeks and I’m sure as hell not seducing away some shallow, money grubbing, tart just to prove to you that I can.”

“Because we both know that you don’t have an ounce of charm left in you. Probably never did in the first place if we’re being honest. People are looking for more than just money, Nick. They want love and warmth and frankly you don’t have any of that left in you to offer.” 

Suspicion, but not enough for his own safety, welled up in Nick. “The fuck you think you’re going to get out of this, Gabe?”

“Twenty thousand dollars, because you can’t do it. You not only have lost any bit of charm that you ever had, but you also don’t look like you have a dime to your name. So it’d be some kind of magic trick for you to find any kind of anyone who wants to get lovey eyed with you.”

“All I have to do is put on a suit―”

“And shave.” Gabriel suggested.

“ _ And shave _ , and then confessions of love will flow, because people aren’t looking for anything deeper than my wallet.”

“Then you do all of that, and I get to keep my favorite big brother for a whole two weeks  _ and  _ I get to watch him possibly be happy for once because he’s got someone being sweet on him… but we both know that you can’t actually do it, and I’ll get a nice stack of cash as a consolation to your failure. So,” he shrugged and looked all too happy.

Competitiveness ran strong in their family, almost as strong and as damaging as their inability to back down from this kind of asinine betting that no one could possibly win at.

“You know what, fuck you, you cocky little bastard. You’re on.”

“Wait, really?”

“Did I stutter?”

“You actually think you can do it.  _ Wow _ .”

“Anyone in this city. Anyone in the whole state.” It was bragging, but it was expected of him. He and his brother both knew that he was still some kind of broken over something that had happened to him a decade ago. But it had sort of been a big deal and as much as he tried to get over it even now he could hear it shaping his words. “Love is just a nice lie that people tell themselves when they want to feel safe and needed. It doesn’t take much to trick someone into that.” 

“Somehow I managed to forget what a proud son of a bitch you are.”

“We both are. It’s a miracle that this much pride can exist within a mile radius without affecting the tides or something.”

A dangerous sort of smile crawled over Gabriel like a predatory creature as he looked out at the people passing by their little patio table. “Double or nothing if I get to pick who it is.”

“Hell no.” Nick found himself laughing at the suggestion. “You’d pick some blue haired grandma just for the giggles. And I’m not saying that I couldn’t easily swing it, but… ewww.”

“No more than five years age difference, and attractive. You’ve got my word.” He held out a hand to his big brother, wanting to seal the deal. “Come on. Prove I’m wrong, you big bag of dicks. What have you got to lose?”

“As long as it’s not Lilith you can pick any anyone you like.” Nick took his brother’s hand, wincing because it was just as cold as his own. 

“That one.” With his free hand, Gabe pointed over Nick’s shoulder. “I pick that one.” 

Quickly he let go, turning in his chair and trying to see who had been chosen as the lucky victim. “Who?” There were too many people walking around.

“The brunette getting off the bus just across the street.”

Nick scanned the crowd. “The one with the ponytail?”

“No.”

“That’s the only brunette I’m seeing, shortstack.” There was lots of black hair, twice as many blondes, someone with platinum white hair, and even two teens with hair that was a surprising and beautiful shade of blue. 

“The tall one.”

And even without looking at his brother, Nick could hear the smile. He could feel it growing behind him as he watched a couple people crossing to this side of the street. His eyes focusing in on one single person who stood nearly a whole head taller than the other people moving about with purpose in the cold winter air.. “You mean the  _ male  _ one?”

“I think he’s  _ real pretty _ , don’t you?”

Nick turned on his brother, venom on his tongue. “Hell no.”

“You already agreed to it.”

“He’s a guy.”

“You’re so observant. Wow.” Gabe lightly applauded like his big brother had done some kind of trick. “But you clearly said  _ anyone _ , not any  _ woman _ . You should have been more specific.”

They’d known each other too long. Their whole lives. They’d done some truly terrible things to each other over the years. They’d done significantly worse to other people. They had the same sort of criminal mind. It made it very easy to realise what had just happened to Nick, all though the realisation came a bit too late. “... This is why you picked this Starbucks, isn’t it? You knew he’d be coming by.”

Gabriel didn’t have to answer with words. The way he was practically vibrating with joy said everything. 

“You know him, don’t you?”

“Who do you think gave me this?” And he motioned with a sweeping gesture to the purpled bruising on the underside of his jaw. 

“Oh my god.” Nick was realising very quickly that he’d just lost a sizable chunk of cash because he hadn’t been more selective with his vocabulary. 

“I accidently touched his ass a few nights ago―and I apologised, like a gentleman should.” Gabe watched the disturbingly tall man take out a set of keys and let himself into the little dive bar next door, the door closing tight behind him. “And he very politely accepted the apology. The second time I touched that fine ass I offered him a ride home so he wouldn’t have to take the bus, he very politely told me to fuck off and when I didn’t he elbowed me right in the face.”

“First off, you basically have a wife, so what the hell are you doing feeling up strange men in bars? Second,” he kept going without waiting for an answer, “I’m going to want the forty thousand wired to my bank account because American cash ain't going to do me any good when I go back home.”

“You can’t do it.” Gabriel’s face had gone a bit red with how hard he was laughing. “There’s no way in hell that you can do it.”

Nick lifted his chin with a confidence that he didn’t even come close to feeling. Every part of this was a terrible plan, but showing weakness was not an option. “What about head over heels in love did you not get the first time around?”

“By New Year?”

“If it even takes me that long.” 

“He’s gonna break you in half, big brother.” Gabriel was obviously enjoying himself.

“Yeah, well in a few weeks he’s going to be your brother in law, so hopefully you two can sort out your differences by then.”

Gabriel only laughed harder.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love to see the comments popping up for this story, how excited you guys are already. I was worried about doing another fake dating one, but you know what? It's such a goofy trope and I love it and not only will I not apologize, but I will stubbornly and happily write another few hundred pages of it. yay  
> Thanks for coming along with me for another tail of stupid misunderstandings and man-drama

Murmuring soft profanities under his breath, Sam walked towards the black car that was very obviously waiting for him. It was stupid and he was practically made of regrets at this point, but he was already dressed in the  surprisingly well fitting tux that had been delivered to his room an hour ago, and if he turned back now he’d have a very long, and rather formal, walk of shame back to his room. 

“I knew you’d clean up alright.” Luci hardly glanced over when Sam opened the passenger side door and folded his way into the car that had to be a rental. The blond was quietly texting short words into a phone that looked too small for his hands. “The suit fit right? I had to guess on the size.”

Sam hated to admit that it fit better than pretty much any of the clothes that he owned. “It’s fine.”

“You didn’t tie your tie.” He folded his phone closed and tucked it into an inner pocket of his coat, half turning in his seat to look critically at the man beside him. 

“Might surprise you to know that I don’t have much experience with bowties.”

“There are instructional videos on the internet,” Luci reached over without permission and began to carefully twist the two ends together like he’d done this a million times.

“I tried, it just,” Sam was having strange flashbacks to his big brother teaching him how to tie a tie before his junior prom. “It just looked weird.” 

“Yeah well, bowties are not for the faint of heart,” he mumbled to himself as he seemingly tied the stupid thing with no effort whatsoever. 

“Who actually knows how to tie these things other than James Bond?” Sam craned his neck to look at himself in the rearview mirror. “Are you secretly some kind of spy?” 

Luci raised a pale eyebrow before getting his hands onto the steering wheel and pointing them on the way out of the parking lot. “If I was, and I told you, I’d have to kill you.”

“Be a hell of a way to start off a first date,” a choice of words that Sam regretted almost instantly. “Um, I mean, if we’re pretending that we know each other pretty well then it might be good to actually know each other's last names and stuff… for believability and all.” It was not a good save, but it seemed to distract the other man from the very weird thing that wasn’t sure why he’d said.

“Nicolas Novak.” The man in the driver’s seat said as he easily navigated them towards the highway and took the North. 

The name caught at Sam’s mind but he didn’t know why. It was an unusual name so he felt like if he actually knew it then he would know where he knew it from. Instead of meaning anything though it just sat as a mystery at the front of his thoughts. “I guess you do look a bit more like a Nicolas than a Lucy, but it’s not as fun.”

“It was a nickname from highschool and on into college.” He turned on his blinker and then aggressively went over four lanes, putting them in the fast lane and leaving Sam gripping the edges of his seat. “I wrote for the school papers under a fake name―”

“A girl’s name?” 

“Yeah, Louise Cypher… you say it out loud and it’s Lucifer... kind of. It was a bad joke,” his little smile said that he was still enjoying it years later, “but a good writing name.”

“So Luci,” he had to rethink the name and was weirdly ok with it and its origin. “And that’s what you still go by?”

“Not when I write, no―I use my real name now. But some people still call me Luci.” For a man who was supposed to be sharing things about himself he oddly didn’t expand on the whole writing thing, and just kept on with the formalities. “How ‘bout you, Sam? Just Sam, no last name, like Cher?” 

“Samuel Winchester, but no one calls me Samuel. It is just Sam.”

“Winchester like the gun?”

“Like the gun,” he repeated comfortably. It’s wasn’t the first and wouldn’t be the last time that someone said those exact words to him during an introduction. “You already know what I do for work, and I’m pre law up at the state University. What do you do when you’re not propositioning men in bars?”

“I don’t know what you do, not for your second job.” Luci frowned at the road distractedly. “They give you any grief for calling out tonight to come play with me?”

Nothing about that sentence sat well with Sam, so he ended up frowning too, but still he answered, “I work for a mechanic in the lower east end. He knows I’ve got school, it’s not a big deal if I skip one night.” It had been a bit more than a big deal in the same way that it was only a mechanic’s shop in the loosest terms. But straight out calling Reese’s garage  a chop shop sort of acknowledged that what Sam did with his evenings was incredibly illegal and he’d rather not start tonight off on that bad of a foot. “So… that’s me. Work with my hands. Salt of the earth and all that stuff. What do you do with yourself when you’re not skulking in bars, looking like a hipster, and trying to piss off your family by picking up men?”

The sharp line of a tooth dimpled the man’s lower lip as he made a face. “Graduated from Notre Dame, and now I teach.”

“Really?” The guy didn’t look more than a few years older than Sam, it was a little difficult to picture him as a professor. 

“Shocking, right?” 

“I didn’t mean it like―”

“No, I get it a lot. It’s fine,” a hint of humor played over his face. “I teach English overseas.”

Sam nodded because he wasn’t sure how else to respond to that. “Like in China or South America?”

“Nothing quite that noble. It’s a few literature classes at a university in France.”

“Oh? Oh! You’re like a  _ real  _ teacher then?”

Luci laughed and it was a very soft and restrained sort of sound. “At a real school and everything, yup.”

A smile tugged at Sam and he turned away as much as his seatbelt would allow, looking out the window at the stormy clouds overhead that promised either snow or sleet before they made it as far as their destination. “And your family is all out here?”

“For the most part, yeah.” He was biting his lip again, and Sam wondered if it was just something that he did when he was thinking. “I’m the younger of a set of twins. Michael is the other half of my soul and we sort of hate each other for it. We’ve got a younger sister Anna, and younger brothers Gabriel and Castiel.”

“Four boys? Your poor parents.”

“Yeah, we’re all pretty sure that Gabe was an accident. Cassy is alright, though.”

“I’ve just got the one brother, older than me by four years, Dean.”

“ _ Dean _ ,” the other man repeated the name like he was memorising it, readying himself for a quiz, and Sam realised it wouldn’t hurt him to do the same. They repeated a few things back to one another, double and triple checking that they wouldn’t say something stupidly wrong, and it was a very strange way to start a night. A way that made it feel nothing at all like a date, and for that Sam was endlessly grateful, because this whole thing didn’t need any help in being awkward and strange. 

“How did we meet?” 

Nick, who’d given Sam permission to call him in place of Luci whenever felt right, frowned and chewed on his cheek, making funny little dimples. “Technically? In a bar. But they all known that I’ve been back here in the states for only two days, so that wont work.”

As to  _ why _ Sam had to have known this man here for a long while was still a big foggy to him. Something about that his family would definitely ask, and Luci having a long term ‘man-friend’ (or man-panion if you will) would be the most upsetting to everyone involved. And upsetting seemed to be the main goal of this whole venture. 

“We met before you went to France?”

He made that face again, his nose scrunching this time. “That would have been about ten years back… I’m not sure I’d be able to pull off knowing you that well.”

“Well, I would have been starting Junior High at that point, so that might be a bit awkward as to why you had questionable relationships with an eleven year old boys.”

The car coasted while Luci actually turned slightly to look at the man in his passenger seat with a hint of wonder. “You’re only twenty one?”

“Yes?”

“Oh God. You’re hardly old enough to drink. How’d you get a job in a bar?”

“I’m very tall for my age,” Sam said dryly, rolling his eyes before elbowing the man and pointing at the road that was being ignored.

“Tall isn’t the point. Fuck.” He took a sharp breath through his nose before focusing on the rather important driving job that he had. Snow had started to fall, dizzying little flecks of white that spun wildly around the car as they drove. “Well, I guess it’s just going to have to be a May/December kind of thing between us… and that should actually bother them a bit extra, so I guess it’s ok.”

It was Sam’s turn to frown a little. “How old are you?”

“Thirty four.”

Sam’s teeth clicked softly as he kept his mouth very closed. It’s not that it was  _ old _ or even that the man beside him talked like or held himself like a man old enough to have kids getting ready to go to college. It was just that an age difference like that would give Sam pause if this was a woman and they were actually planning on a real and proper date, so it felt fair to give his brain a few moments to really digest this simple but surprising fact.

“So we say that we met online two or three years ago. You  _ do _ look like the kind of weirdo who might go online dating for guys way younger than himself...god, I would have been only eighteen or nineteen when we met...” hiding a grinn, Sam took out his phone and pulled up his contact list. “And if anyone asks your name is now changed in my phone from ‘hipster with the rum and coke’ to  _ ‘Daddy’ _ .”

Luci laughed with the kind of startled joy that must have made it hard to keep his eyes on the road. Almost doubled over for a second, his forehead lightly kissed the steering wheel before he got himself under control. He was, after all, driving, and keeping that a priority was rather important. “Please make sure that I’m there to see how well that goes over. It’ll be like an early Christmas present.”

Despite the slight horror that came with being a passenger in this man’s car, Sam found that he was oddly enjoying himself. There was a non threatening strangeness to Nick that put him at ease in a way that he hadn’t expected. And he’d been expecting a lot of things before he’d left his dorm room.

Holding tight to the seatbelt strap over his chest, and watching the other cars on the freeway that all seemed to be moving at a slightly more safe speed, Sam wondered if this was all just a false sense of security. A little lull before the weirdness of what he was doing really took hold.

“I’m still here for it,” for the amount of money that had been promised, Sam was definitely still here, “But you’ve sort of set tonight up like bringing a guy to this family dinner is the worst possible thing that you could think of.” 

“Not going would be worse; but it’s my parent’s twenty fifth anniversary, and I’m a bad son but not bad enough to pull off something worse than this.”

“Should I be bracing for something more than uncomfortable looks and conversation over fancy people food?”

The other man quietly repeated Sam’s last few words with a distracted chuckle, before shaking his head. “They’re too polite and have too much money to do anything than be very quietly distressed and maybe toss around a few backhanded insults that should just roll off those broad and muscular shoulders of yours.”

Twenty thousand was a fine trade for a few little insults from people that he’d never have to see again. Nick didn’t have the same easy out. Sam had know this man for less than a day and still he was compelled to be slightly protective. “I just think that there’s probably better ways to bother people than pretending to come out.” 

The laughter was a bit more restrained this time. “I’m only here until New Years, why not fuck with everyone before I go back home?”

“It’s your family, man. You’re the one who’s going to have to live with them thinking you’re gay from now on.”

“They’ve thought a lot worse about me―and really, it’s that you’re  _ you, _ not that you’re a guy, that’s going to be the worst part for them.”

“I feel like I should be offended, but I have no idea what that’s supposed to even mean, so I guess I’ll let it go.” Sam lied very lightly. He’d had the reasons explained to him last night, and running over them again now in his mind he felt rather self conscious about his uneven nails, about his hair that needed to be cut a few months ago, about the tuxedo that wasn’t his (even if it fit well enough). He took a slow breath and found words to tease with because it eased his mind. 

“Is this… is this going to be one of those terrible 90’s teen movies where the popular rich kid invites the awkward nerdy girl out on a dare?”

“I don’t think I’ve seen that one.”

“Come on, it was like half the movies that were made in the 90’s.”

“How do they end?”

“With all kinds of misunderstandings and yelling.”

“Oh, that’s not so bad.” He nodded partially at Sam and partially at the road ahead of them that had turned whitish grey and slushy. “I was worried you’d say it ended with a kiss or something. I mean, you’re cute and all but...”

It was the way that Nick said it that made Sam want to clarify. “Can I remind you that I’m only here as your ‘platonic male escort’- _ slash _ -fake boyfriend, and that there’s no way I’m kissing you or anything like that.”

“If your mouth comes anywhere close to touching mine I won't be paying you a cent.” His words were so serious despite the flash of a smile that came over him. “This isn’t some weird fantasy, or an experimental phase, or even a bucket list. I just want to watch my family squirm and regret forcing me to come, not make a drastic change to my lifestyle.”

“Part of me keeps expecting that the two hundred last night is all that I’m actually going to get out of this stupid thing.”

“I’ve got your money for you in the glove box.”

Sam didn’t open the little door against his knees, it didn’t seem polite. “You… you’re carrying that much cash around with you?”

“It’s only my problem for a few more hours. Then you can figure out what to do with it.”

He obviously hadn’t thought this one through all the way. “You’re just going to shadily hand me an unmarked envelope stuffed with cash and then let me walk away into the night?”

“Well, I was considering dumping your body in the Hudson once dinner is done, but we can try things your way if you like.” 

The glove box felt more important than the road or the man beside him. “You could have written a check.”

“I didn’t think that you’d trust it if I’d written a check.”

“I...I didn’t know that they paid teachers in France so much money.” Sam relaxed his hold on his seatbelt so he could pass a hand through his hair. 

“They don’t. It’s only two classes a week and I’ve been a lazy writer recently. Only putting out a new book every other year. But I have access to funds, stocks, _ family money _ ,” he stressed the word oddly, “that kind of thing that I never had to work for and really don’t like touching―”

“Unless you’re using it to buy some company for the night?”

Nick gave a sort of one shouldered shrug as he changed over a few lanes to the right and took the exit that read ‘Cove Neck’. “I don’t mind using my family’s money to bother my family. Plus, I’m helping to put a nice young man though college, how kind of me… unless you’re using the money for drugs, in which case I’ve never seen you before in my life.” 

Sam’s grin was more out of reflex then humor, because he’d never been this far upstate and by the look of the very well upkeep buildings that they passed he would never find another reason to get back up here. They must have been downtown, and it was just off the freeway, which by all rights should have made the area at least slightly sketchy―and yet the store fronts, and art galleries, and restaurants were all too fancy. 

He tried to tell himself that it was just the forgiving sunlight that strained behind the clouds, and the crust of fresh snow blanketing everything, that gave it its dreamscape like quality. Deep down, though, the kid from Kansas, the son of a very middle class mechanic and who’d never tried to be anything more than very middle class, suddenly felt overly aware of the fact that he was wearing black work boots with his tux because he didn’t own ‘nice’ shoes. 

They didn’t go to someone’s house like Sam had been expecting. For whatever reason he’d really just assumed that he’d be spending the evening in a very expensive mansion of a house. It had made the most sense to him. Standing very close to a relative stranger, trying not to look too dazzled at the lights and photographers, a house would have made endless amounts of more sense to him. It was a converted movie theater from the fifties. Marquees, white marble, gold trim, and snow swept free from the sidewalk so no one’s shoes would get wet or messy. 

“This is not some  _ family thing _ .” He hissed into Nick’s ear. “This is insane.”

“It’s a charity dinner. My parents are into ‘giving back’, so it’s how they like to celebrate their big anniversaries… I’m going to put my arm around you.”

“You’re  _ what _ ?” Sam barely even managed half the words before the other man slid an arm around his waist, heavy hand resting just above his hip. He stiffened before realising that the sudden over closeness was in part to get their photo taken and in part to keep them moving towards the entrance.

Sam was sure that he smiled into the flash bulb, but he was also sure that he probably only managed to look like a deer in headlights before they were walking away. 

Luci didn’t let them linger in the front where people dressed to the nines were all smiling and laughing and nodding towards cameras before going in out of the cold. Sam actually recognised a few faces; morning show hosts with very white teeth, the receiver for the New York Giants and a slight companion who was probably his wife, there was even a giggling woman that looked an awful lot like the love interest from a romantic comedy that Sam had been dragged to this past summer, and then so many other people whose faces were unfamiliar but who reeked of money and expensive tastes.

This wasn’t any kind of family dinner. This was a social event that apparently had a very ritzy guest list. 

Sam tried to scuff his boots on the sidewalk before going inside where the floors all looked freshly cleaned for the event. 

“Don’t.” Nick sort of growled and kept tugging at Sam like a stubborn dog on a leash who didn’t want to go inside. “Rich people don’t have dirty shoes.”

“I’m not rich.”

“You wouldn’t be able to pay for the five thousand dollars a plate meal if you weren’t, Sammy. So follow me. We will smile and walk and pretend that we belong here.”

“It’s just Sam.” And he did his best to fake a convincing smile to the person at the door who took an embossed and gold leafed invitation from Nick and nodded them through. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so I was rereading through this chapter (I wrote it months ago, and I wanted a little refresher) and I forgot how much I love this one. We get to meet Nick's family and they are always such a treat to write.   
> This last week out here's been a bit overly dramatic, hoping you guys are in a better space, and if not so much?? then hopefully this chapter helps you out a bit too

The inside of the old theater was just as unnecessarily fancy as the exterior and all the people standing around. There’d been some effort to preserve the history of the place, the front hall proudly decorated with vintage movie posters from a different era, red velvet carpets, and globe like glimmery edison style bulbs.

“Are we… are we going to be watching a movie or something?”

“No, no. They tore down the screens. It’s a kind of ballroom thing now.”

“You’ve been here before?”

“I was supposed to have my wedding reception here.” Nick sounded distracted as he scanned the little groups of people and happy looking couples moving around slowly through the room as if blown by a breeze. 

“You’ve... been married?” It’s not like Sam cared, but it seemed important to the whole knowing each other for a few years lie that they were propagating. 

“Nope.” Was the only offered answer and Nick used that arm still around Sam’s middle to warmly guide him towards a set of double doors.

A story was there, but the time for one was not. 

There was a flurry of black dress and carefully curled red hair and a smattering of freckles that was attaching itself to the man beside him. Sam was released and took a healthy step to the side all the better to watch the scene. 

“Gabe said that you got in a few days ago, but no one’s seen you and I thought he was lying.” The woman’s words all muffled from where she’d mashed her face into the Nick’s chest. “Come down here so I can hug you propper, you giant weirdo.” And this must be younger sister Anna, who was pulling her big brother down and leaving lipstick stains on his cheeks. 

At least Sam hoped that this was Anna, otherwise he had no good guess to who was lightly mauling his ‘date’.

“You gorgeous thing. It’s been ten goddamned years, how do you still look the same as last time I saw you?” Nick was laughing and untangling himself. He looked happy in a way that seemed more vulnerable and unintentional than he’d been since Sam had met him the night before. 

“Bathing in the blood of the innocent.” She flicked some curls over a shoulder and flashed a grin that was a little too much like her brother’s, which was to say slightly predatory. “You know. The usual stuff… who’s your friend?”

“Boyfriend,” Nick didn’t miss a beat. “Sam. Sam, this is Anna. Anna, Sam.”

Her eyes had gone from laughing to wide as her smile faltered for just a split second. “Sam?” And then it was back, but in a practiced, perfect kind of way that some people can smile. Whatever she really felt was comfortably tucked away and it was only politeness offered. “It’s wonderful to meet you.”

Doing his best to match expectations, Sam shook her offered hand and was pleasantly surprised at how firm and proper of a handshake it was. She had a forceful grip for such a delicate little thing. “Anna. I’ve heard only good things about you.” 

Which was true. Nick had been smiling softly back in the car when he talked about his little sister and that she’d recently been offered a research grant for some work that she was doing with turtles or something down in Florida. He’d sounded proud of her then. He looked proud of her now. 

It reminded Sam of how his brother Dean would look at him when they were kids, and he sort of found himself slightly won over by Nick because of it. But then that arm was sliding posessively around him again, this time without warning. It took just about everything in the younger man to not slap his way to freedom.

Nick was all smiles and confidence that didn’t feel wholly genuine. “Everyone else here already?”

“The parentals are. Cassy is around here somewhere. We’re still waiting on the lesser brothers.”

“Oh, ‘lesser brothers’.” Nick’s teeth caught the light. “I’m going to tell them that you said that.”

“Please. I have to see their dumb faces every few months. But you’re here. The prodigal son.” Anna gave very brief jazz hands, giving off excitement like Nick was anything but a towering kind of man that was nearly twice her size. “Everyone else can take a long walk off a short pier. You’ve always been my favorite. So,” she ginned and easily pressed herself between the two men like they were her bookends, pushing them apart before looping her small but strong arms through theirs. “Favorite brother, favorite brother’s unexpected... _ boyfriend _ , escort me. I will make you both look good, and somehow even taller if that’s possible. God, Nick, how’d you find anyone else as big as you?” 

“Oh, he’s not bigger than me where it counts,” Nick let himself get pulled along, casting the barest hint of a wink in Sam’s direction. 

“Don’t make me regret missing you,” she scolded before glancing up at Sam. “I’d apologise to you for him, but I’m sure you’re used to it by now.”

Sam was not, but he smiled and pretended that he wasn’t slightly weirded out by the innuendo.

“I’m guessing you two met back in France? Tell me it was a romantic story. Maybe Paris in the spring and moonlit walks along the river.” Anna looked every so slightly invested in this world that she was crafting for them. “Were you working abroad for a publisher or…?”

“I’m actually a student out here at NY State. Pre law.”

“Oh, well that’s not even halfway romantic, but with Nicky I suppose the bar shouldn’t be set too high.” She honestly didn’t seem wholly at peace with the idea of her brother’s boyfriend existing, but she was adjusting rather quickly. 

There was tact in this woman that Sam hadn’t necessarily been expecting. It was sort of nice. And Sam thought to himself that if he were here honestly, as Nick’s real boyfriend, then he’d feel sort of welcomed. 

They’d entered the main room and the rest of the conversation sort of got waylaid. Sam was distracted by the tiered seating; round tables evenly spaced out on the wide old steps that had probably once held four or five rows each of movie theater seats. A small empty space had been left at the lowest part of the floor, where the narrow little stage held up a big empty stretch of wall that must have been for a movie screen in a past life. On one corner of the ‘stage’, that couldn’t have been more than three feet wide, there was a very nice looking sign for a foundation that Sam had never heard of along with some really lovely flower arrangements that managed to be seasonally appropriate without looking over Christmassy, and a scattering of gifts that were all wrapped too neatly for their own good.

“You boys are going to be sitting with me, for safety.” Anna announced, pulling them along with her to one of the round tables and rearranging little name cards that sat above the plates.

“Anna, you’ll be fine--”

“Your safety. Not mine.” She gave her brother a meaningful look before placing his name beside hers, ‘ _ Nick’s guest _ ’ went one more seat down.

Sam glanced at the other names that he could see and did his best to pretend not to be looking too hard. It seemed like this was the sibling table. Novak and Novak +1s as far as the eye could see. There was a ‘Gabriel’ to Sam’s right, and he knew enough to know that this was the younger brother who Nick thought of as a bit of an accident.

“Should I…” he frowned, looking over Anna’s head to her big brother, meaningfully nodding to the little name card. 

“No. Oh god, no.” Nick pulled away from his sister and did some very purposeful rearranging of his own. “He’s a man whore and he’d have a hand up your skirt by the end of dinner.”

Finding a neutral expression, Sam did his best to look unfazed by what he could only assume was teasing. Gabriel’s name and his guest were moved without their knowledge or permission to the other side of Anna and Sam was given a Castiel to sit on his right hand. Apparently Castiel was not a man whore, and would be safer company. Conversations from the car gave Sam only the vaguest sense of his newly designated dinner-buddy. Supposedly the youngest brother was a surgical intern in his third year of residency. Good with pediatrics and less good at talking to people, but he apparently meant well. Things to look forward to.

The three of them sat and didn’t have to wait long before someone drifted by to take their drink orders. Anna asked for a vodka martini without hesitation, it didn’t give Sam a whole lot of time to panic because even if he knew how to make an encyclopedias worth of drinks he suddenly forgot the name of each and every one of them. 

He wasn’t prepared to be fancy. 

What do fancy people order?

Was he supposed to be trying to look fancy?

“Two beers,” Nick motioned to himself and his date, and server looked slightly baffled but nodded and left.

“Thanks.” Sam said under his breath, even if he didn’t know what he was thanking the man for. 

With a shrug Nick brushed off the confused appreciation. Easy and comfortable, “We both know that you’re not a champagne kind of guy any more than I am.”

Oddly enough, Sam had never had a chance to even drink champagne, so he’d never really formed an opinion. He smiled just a half of a smile, leaning his shoulder into the man beside him. “Beer works. If it was up to me I would have just ordered you a rum and coke.”

“Mmph, those are only for bad nights.”

Curious, Sam bit back a smile, liking the idea that he’d still not seen this man at anything close to his best. “Last night was a bad night?”

“Let’s just say it got better when you got there.”

Stifling a laugh, Anna put her hands over her mouth. “Oh no. You two are  _ cute _ ,” like she was lamenting, like it couldn’t get any worse than this. 

“Don’t you start by calling me names, little girl,” Nick gave his sister such a smile, obviously enjoying it. “You know I don’t take that kind of thing laying down.”

“Does… does your Sam know what you do and don’t take laying down?”

Unbidden heat rose to Sam’s cheeks. For whatever reason he hadn’t been particularly prepared for pretty girls to be throwing around innuendos like confetti. They hadn’t exactly covered sex in the car conversation―and by the look on the man beside him it was obvious that this lapse was because Nick hadn’t really considered it either.

“We’ve been skyping for a few years now… but uh, yeah.” Sam made up the best lie that he could come up with on the fly, his hand slipping over the back of Nick’s like he had any right to do so. “Last night was the first time that we’ve had a chance to see each other face to face for real.”

Anna’s eyes widened much like when she’d first heard the word ‘boyfriend’, that predatory grin came right back with a vengeance and somewhere in that she looked impressed by both of them. “And you two came out to this boring old dinner instead of locking yourself into Nick’s hotel and fuu… and hey, Mom. Dad. Look who I found wandering around outside.” 

Faintly, on the far side of Nick, his little sister did what she could to show him off, wide arms and wiggly fingers and too many teeth. Sam could kind of see it, but he was very distracted by the people that she was suddenly talking to. 

‘Dad’ had a slightly crooked tie and his short beard and wavy hair were streaked through with grey. He had a look of wonder on his face as he looked at his two kids. The woman on his arm, ‘Mom’, was frail. Sam struggled to find other words to describe her. Tall? Dark haired? Very well put together despite the fact that a strong wind might be the end of her?

Calling the sudden tension uncomfortable would have been an understatement. 

Nick had instantly gone rigid beside Sam, but he found the will to move before his parents could. He squared his shoulders and put on a shit eating grin, “Do I get a hello, or should I just let myself out before someone calls security?”

Mom’s voice instantly marked her as someone whose first language was not english, just a hint of a something that didn’t necessarily belong as she sighed and shook her head. “You’ve got lipstick on your cheeks, Nicky.”

He hadn’t moved, his hand still under Sam’s and his grin tight enough that it could have been screwed on. “Ten years and all you’ve got to say to me is that I’ve got lipstick on my cheeks?”

“Well you do.” 

He made no attempt at wiping the soft red smudges from his cheek, wearing them with pride. “Presents from my baby sister.  _ She _ was happy to see me.”

Dad broke away so carefully from his wife who might not know how to smile. He came around the table and held his arms out to his son almost hesitantly. Not like he didn’t want a hug, but like he was afraid that he’d be turned down. 

Nick half rose from his chair and pulled his arms around his surprisingly short father. They smacked eachother on the back, and Sam was close enough to hear whispered words that weren't meant to go beyond the two men. 

“Don’t mind your mother, you know she doesn’t like surprises.”

“She’s going to hate that I came with my boyfriend.”

“I… I love that you came at all. Boyfriend or not.” 

They pulled apart and the older gentleman looked at Sam for the first time. His smile hadn’t changed, hopeful and unsure, and oddly happy about all of this. His hand was warm and dry in Sam’s and he shook like he knew what he was doing. “Glad you could two could join us. Charles Novak. But you can call me Chuck.”

“Sam Winchester,” he half stood, because it felt weird to shake hands when sitting. He nodded towards Mom Novak and wasn’t surprised to see that she still looked impassive about all of this. “Ma’am.”

She nodded and cleared her throat, holding her arm out expectantly as she waited for her husband to come back to her. Dutifully he returned to her, taking her arm through his and patting her hand where it rested so delicately along his wrist. The suggestion of a smile that she offered the table was measured out like she was rationing them. “It very nice that you boys could make it. We always leave a seat at the table for you Nick, but you really should have let someone know you were coming.”

“Yeah, but it would have given you all a chance to change the locks on me.”

“Will you be… staying at the house?” Dad honestly sounded like he was fine if this was the plan, and Sam wondered if, like the empty plate at the table, there was still a room somewhere set up for this man beside him who hadn’t been home in forever.

“No. As much fun as sleeping in my old bunk bed would be, Sam and I are staying in Gabriel’s uptown apartment until I’ve got to head back home.” Nick laid out as he slid an arm around the backrest of Sam’s chair, a thumb softly brushing along his shoulder. 

It was definitely one way to say ‘I’m banging this guy right here’ without using the words.

And it went a little better than expected. 

Mom lost that ghost of a smile, and Dad’s smile became something thin lipped and apologetic.

“Well,” Chuck gave a small incline of his head. “We’d be happy to see you, both of you boys, any time.”

“Do I need to call ahead and make an appointment first?” Which was a strange thing to ask, and Nick said the words so tightly through his smile that they sounded nothing at all like a friendly offer. 

Dad winced a little. Mom actually nodded, “That would be lovely, dear. Do you still remember the number for the house, or should I have one of your brothers write it down for you?”

“Oh, I remember the number just fine.” 

“Wonderful.” She nodded to her son, then nodded to her husband. “I think that’s the mayor’s aid over near the door. We should go say hello.” 

With a half of an apology and a promise to talk later, Charles lead or was lead by his wife down towards the big double doors. 

Sam said nothing. Not a thing. 

What the hell do you follow something like that up with? So he sat and tried not to focus on the way that Nick’s thumb was still making slow patterns along the curve of his bicep through his suit jacket. 

Their drinks arrived, and Anna thanked the man before tossing back half her martini. “Wow,” she whistled softly through here teeth. “That went… really fantastic, didn’t it?” Her tone said that it had gone anyway but. 

“Better than I expected.” Nick slowly sank into his seat, knee knocking Sam’s under the table in a way that seemed accidental. “God. Gabe warned me, but she looks so much worse than I was expecting.” He took a swig of his beer and rolled his head towards his date, offering the small explanation of, “They said that she was diagnosed with Parkinson’s and MS, but I think it’s just all that bitterness that she’s been marinating in for the past half a century. It finally got to her.”

“Nick,” Anna smacked his chest, warning. She glanced at Sam with that same soft apology from earlier. “She’s really very kind. Her and Nick just had a bit of a fight before he left last time―”

“We’ve been having ‘just a bit of a fight’ since I brought that stray dog home when I was ten.” The tight smiles and confident shoulders had left Nick in a wash, all the fight going out of him like he suddenly remembered that he was exhausted. And despite the fact that he hardly knew Sam at all he seemed very comfortable suddenly collapsing beside him. Staring sullen into his very fancy looking glass of beer.

“It did pee on her antique rug.” Anna didn’t really defend the dog or it’s actions, but she did consult the rest of her martini, finding the bottom of the glass before setting it very solidly on the table. “She really liked that rug, Nicky, and you were always bringing home strays.”

“Yeah… never really got over that.” He cast a weak smile at Sam.

Sam did his best to play along. He grinned like he knew full well that he was every bit a stray and pleased about it―even if inwardly he was cringing over the everything that he’d just had to watch. Not offended, just sort of sympathetically injured on this man’s behalf. He’d come here tonight with certain expectations, and that whole greeting had stomped all over them.

It settled down, after all, they had Anna and she seemed like a treat. She had Nick smiling and chuckling softly again in minutes, she dragged Sam right along too. Her laughter was contagious and it would have felt a bit like a crime to not grin back at her while she teased Nick about him and his date and their matching outfits and how they needed to go check out a restaurant on Coney Island while he was out visiting; not just because it was a romantic little place, but because the steak there was amazing. She knew how to ramble and distract―to a point. 

People were all slowly taking their seats, getting drinks and filling the room with the comfortable white noise of pre dinner conversations. It was hard to make fake future dates with Nick when his siblings started showing up. 

Castiel and Michael were both dark haired and as blue eyed as the rest of them. The younger brother giving tight lipped smiles and kept touching Nick’s arm like he was double checking that this wasn’t some kind of hallucination. Michael (not an identical twin apparently) had come with a wife and had stood there a little too long just frowning at Nick before actually acknowledging him properly. 

“Get up,” Michael had said in place of a hello, and when his instructions weren’t followed he repeated them again, a little lilt at the end making it almost a question. 

The quiet tension had returned to Nick; Sam had a front row seat and didn’t know what to make of it. But Nick stood and started to make some joke, “hey, you looking to settle things from last time then we should take it out back, for the ladies sake if nothing―” the rest of his words crushed out of him in a deep and solid brother hug. 

Sam felt a little stupid for half getting out of his seat, but his instincts said ‘fight’ and for whatever reason he’d been ready to throw down with Nick against a perfect stranger. He awkwardly lowered himself down until the seat hit the backs of his thighs, and he did his best to casually drink his beer and pretend that he hadn’t just done anything odd. 

“It’s always a guessing game with those two.” Castiel’s shoulder wasn’t nearly as high as Sam’s, and he’d have a small bruise if the shorter man planned to keep leaning into him like that throughout the night. “Their last fight started about the same way, but ended up with broken bones.”

The two men in question were still hugging. Faces buried in each other’s shoulders and they kept kind of rocking, kind of smacking one another to the point that people at other tables had started to take notice. 

“Geeze, get a room, you weirdos.” A rather short man with too much sandy colored hair and an unashamedly red tie actually pushed at the brothers as he walked past. 

This seemed completely uncalled for in Sam’s opinion, but once the brothers broke apart, wearing matching twisting little smiles they simply pulled the short man into the embrace. 

“That’s Gabriel,” Castiel oddly read Sam’s confusion like a billboard, still elbowing him slightly as he ignored personal space. “He’s the strange one.”

Michaels’ wife and another woman who’d somehow snuck up on the table took their seats in the circle and smiled to Anna and the two men who were firmly not joining in the brotherly hugging and soft, fast greetings that were instantly drifting towards what sounded like soft, fast insults and laughter. 

Pleasantries went around the table. Michael’s wife, Bela, and Gabriel’s fiance, Kali. Both women seemed confused by Sam’s introduction as Nick’s boyfriend (given by Anna), and looks were exchanged a little less than subtly, but they played it all off fairly well. The men folk rejoined the group, breaking apart to come sit down where they could talk to one another across the table, all smiles and over-eager reunion that Sam felt nostalgia for down in his bones. 

He and Dean got like this whenever Sam came home to visit. He’d never been gone for more than a few month and even that much felt like torture to be separated from your best friend, from the person that had grown up beside you. Trying to imagine stretching that out to ten years came like a painful wrenching in his gut. He did note that Castiel hadn’t joined the man pile, and even now didn’t really join the almost too eager conversation. He just sat beside Sam and sipped on the water that he’d assured the waiter that he’d really, really wanted. Maybe he just wasn’t as close to Michael and Gabriel? Sam didn’t feel like it was his place or any of his business to ask. 

“ _ Boyfriend _ ,” the word rose above the chatter and caught Sam’s attention in a bad way. 

Michael was looking at Sam. He may have had eyes the same after the storm sea blue color as his brother’s, but there was a special level of intensity that was all his own. 

“Boy _ friend _ ?” Michael repeated, changing his inflection, looking from Sam to Nick. Not like he was mad about it, just like he didn’t believe it for a second. “Nick, I know you’ve been embracing your european lifestyle out there, but  _ really _ ? A boyfriend?”

“Hey, first off, screw you?” So conversationally thrown out as Nick’s arm snaked around Sam’s shoulders like it belonged there. Like he owned the younger man and wanted to make sure that the rest of the table knew. “Second… I like him, and I didn’t ask for you opinion.”

“Like doesn’t mean ‘boyfriend’. I  _ like  _ my car, but that doesn’t mean I want to take it to bed.” Michael rolled his eyes, slightly frustrated. “I know you make a game of pissing off Mom, but you could have found a way to do it without dragging this nice kid down with you.”

“I’m not a kid.”

“He’s not a kid.” Nick’s defense overlaying Sam’s with the addition of, “He’s twenty one.” Which was not necessary information, but it was said with such deliberateness that Nick obviously knew exactly how well it would go over.

And Sam had never liked being the center of attention. It made him wonder why he’d agree to this whole thing in the first place. But here he was swimming in the judgemental and surprised gaze of five strangers. Nick’s arm around his shoulders pretty much the only thing that kept him from just begging the floor to swallow him up. 

“I remember being twenty one.” Castiel, who hadn’t batted an eyelash at the revelation from Nick, said into their quiet little corner of the room. “That was a really nice year.”

“Cas, sweety, you’re twenty two.” Gabriel said slowly, not holding back a smile. A smile that looked strange to Sam. Familiar and that was odd because it wasn’t any kind of like Nick’s smile. “You turned twenty two in August.”

“Yes. And I remember being twenty one very clearly. I’m only bringing it up because I also dated an older man when I was that age―”

“You did what?” Michael’s attention refocused, in fact most of the table’s did (Nick included).

“It was only for one night. My car broke down on the side of the road while I was out west for a seminar on pulmonary embolisms and edemas. He gave me a ride into town and we stopped and got a light dinner.”

“That’s… that’s not a date.” Nick soothed, his hand leaving Sam’s shoulder to pat his brother’s. “That’s just someone being nice.”

“We had sex afterwards. I’m fairly certain that that qualifies as a date in most states.” He sipped on his water and looked so incredibly calm. “Though it was in his car, so maybe it was only half a date?”

Something almost like a conversation erupted and Sam was sort of glad that it had nothing to do with him. All he could do was sit there in stifled amusement as he watched this collection of family members (married in or otherwise) losing their collective minds over the fact that their youngest sibling had apparently gotten frisky with another man that summer in the backseat of a car. 

It all might have undermined whatever shock and awe that Nick had been aiming for, but Sam was relieved to have all attention diverted to a more easy target. 

And Castiel looked one hundred percent unfazed by the horror and odd over protectiveness of his siblings. 

Luckily it didn’t last too long. The lights around them dimmed, not to darkness, just enough to catch the room’s attention, and cause a gentle hush to settle. 

Up at the front of the room, down by the narrow stage, a small spot light settled and Chuck stepped into it. 

“Welcome,” he spoke without a microphone, his voice travelling easily across the room. His words weren’t deep and moving. They weren’t encouraging or special. But they had a strength of their own. This was a man used to talking in front of people. He did it well. “My lovely wife had prepared a speech for me… but you all didn’t come here to listen to an old man go on and on about how happy he is to see you all. Thank you all for being here, for contributing to the PATH foundation, a good cause that helps a lot of women and children in need. So enjoy your meals and the open bar, and if the mood strikes you to open your wallets and be a little extra generous this time of year, please don’t fight it.” He returned to his own table to sit beside his wife. 

The lights came back to full power and servers swarmed the room with choreographed precision, setting down soups and salads. Everything looked and smelled amazing. However, it only made Sam realised that not only was this a proper fancy meal with multiple courses, but that he had no idea which of his forks or spoons to use. 

“It doesn’t really matter,” Nick whispered to Sam, for just a second leaning into the younger man and giving him one of those winks. It was hard to tell what he was referring to at first, but then he was flicking a finger over to click a nail against the handle of one of Sam’s forks. “No one’s keeping track, and if they are? fuck ‘em.”

“Oh, right. Ok.” Sam poked at his salad, not sure how he felt about there being walnuts  _ and  _ apples in it. He whispered, not sure how well anyone could hear them while they were sitting shoulder to shoulder. “You doin’ alright?” 

“Yeah. I mean. Always. I exist in a constant state of ‘alright’.”

Sam didn’t buy it. He’d expected to be the only uncomfortable one tonight, but he’d watched the man beside him run a gamut of emotions in a very short period of time. It seemed taxing.

“Got to be honest with ya’, Luci.” Gabriel had stolen his wife’s cocktail, something too green to be natural, holding it up like he meant to make a toast. “I didn’t expect you to show up tonight, certainly not with a date, not after… the everything. So, unexpectedly hot boyfriend aside, it’s good to have you back.”

“It’s just for a couple weeks. And you know that, just like you knew I would be coming with a date, you little creep.” Nick raised his own glass, giving him an oddly heavy look before knocking the crystal against his brother’s. 

“To Gabriel being a little creep!” Kali joined in almost happily as she picked up the less exciting drink that her fiance had ordered and was ignoring, glass chiming.

“ _ No _ ,” mildly annoyed, Gabriel tried to correct his toast gone sideways. “To Nick’s ugly face coming back around.”

His family seemed to have other ideas.

“Gabe’s a creep,” Anna grinned.

“Sure is,” Bela added her glass to the mix. 

“But a nice creep?” Castiel questioned but joined in all the same. 

“King of the creeps.” Michael finally agreed, though he had a funny little almost smile that said perhaps he didn’t usually join in this kind of teasing. “All hail.”

“Oh come on, you guys.” Gabriel rolled his eyes. “You’re making me blush. Stop.  _ Stop _ .”

Sam dutifully raised his glass with the others, but he didn’t drink when they did. It had taken him longer than he’d like, but he finally realized why Gabriel seemed strange to him. He’d met the guy before. 

He’d actually kind of hit the guy in the face.

Gabriel had been drunk at the time. Fairly drunk, very handsy, and Sam had cold-cocked him because the other man had slid his little paws into the back pockets of Sam’s jeans. And it’s not like Sam was freaked out at the idea of being hit on by another male, but you just do go around grabbing a man’s ass after he tells you he’s not into it. Honestly, it gave Sam a deeper respect and horror for what women had to go through on a regular basis and how much they really put up with. 

Unsteady, he leaned into Nick, but with a bit more intensity than either of them had dared up until this point. Sliding a hand around the back of the other man’s neck, he pressed the words into Nick’s cheek, feeling weird about the way that the stubble brushed against the corner of his mouth. “I- uh, may have met your brother a few nights ago.”

“Which one?” If the proximity bothered Nick he didn’t show it, just leaning into the touch almost intimately, putting on a bit of a show, ignoring the soft titters from some of the girls at the table.

“The creep.” Sam wasn’t looking at anything, he’d closed his eyes because being that far into someone else's space made it feel like his only option. “He came into my work and kept trying to feel me up. I sort of hit him in the face for it and kicked him out.”

Nick laughed, very softly, right into Sam’s ear and the younger man pulled away, fighting the urge to rub at his cheek. 

“Don’t go apologizing to me about it,  _ mon petit chou. _ ” The nickname meant absolutely nothing to Sam, but Nick said it with a grin so it probably wasn’t good. He leaned back in, seeming to like the ear whispering, and seeing as Sam’s hand hadn’t left the back of his neck the movement was easy and very natural feeling. “Every single person at this table has probably smacked him at least once and for less of a reason than you had.”

“I’m not apologizing.” Sam absolutely wasn’t saying he was sorry for it. Given the same circumstances he’d do it all over again without hesitation. “I’m saying I don't know if this is all going to work out like you’d hoped if he recognises me.”

“If he was drunk enough to grab your ass―it’s safe to say he probably won’t remember you. And if he does then hey, it’s just a small city. What a  _ co-inky-dink _ and all that.”

“Nick…” Sam had no idea where he was going with that. None at all. It had felt like the beginning of some kind of protest or warning―but the other man had mashed his nose into Sam’s cheek, nuzzling into his mess of hair in a way that undoubtedly looked like a cheek kiss to the others at the table. 

“Look, he’s an ass, but he’s not dumb enough to say any kind of anything about you in front of Kali. She would skin him alive if she caught him feeling up someone else in a bar.”

“What about you?” It not that this was more touching that he’d typically do if he was with his own brother, but it was definitely weirder than Sam was used to and it was difficult not to back the hell up and rub his cheek.

“Hey, he’s the one fondling my boyfriend.” Nick’s breath was so warm and smelled faintly of beer. “I have every right to be pissed off at him, and if he says anything about it then I will be sure to act all kinds of shocked and furious at him on your behalf… but come on, you already punched him. You don’t exactly need me defending your honor.”

Sam pulled away and couldn’t help but grin. Only inches apart, they made a kind of unexpected amount of eye contact that resulted in them both laughing a little too loud, something too close to a nervous giggle.

“You two mind keeping it together until after dinner?” Michael paned in a dry sort of way as he motioned with his fork in their general direction.

“Oh come on, Mikey.” Anna was pink cheeked, either in embarrassment or because she was holding back her own laughter. “They’ve been together for a few years, super longdistance cyber dating, but this is the first time that they’ve seen each other in person. It’s sweet. Let them be sweet.”

Michael just slowly shook his head at Nick, but beside him Gabriel was watching his big brother with a confused sort of, almost suspicious look. 

Sam had no good guesses what it all meant, but was also sure that he didn’t want to speculate too deeply here. Just a few more hours at most and none of this would be his problem anymore. Besides, the main course was coming (whether or not he’d finished his salad yet), and it was lobster, as had been promised. There wasn’t any desire to worry about what the three brothers’ odd looks to each other meant. 

Aside from occasional cryptic looks or words throw out under slightly narrowed eyes, it actually felt very much like any time that Sam had gone home for the holidays. There was a lot of teasing, a lot of laughter, a lot of bringing up things that happened years ago just to watch someone sputter and get red and defensive. Mostly listening to the ebbing and flowing conversation, and off and on again holding hands with Nick between their plates, Sam found himself learning an awful lot about these people. 

A good chunk of it was about Michael’s wife, because Nick hadn’t even known that his older brother was married, or that he’d produced two kids. Eating with his left hand, his right hand holding Sam’s with their fingers twinned, Nick had asked a  _ lot _ of questions. 

Where did they meet?  _ Through Anna. _

What was her maiden name?  _ Talbot _ .

How long had they been together?  _ Four years now. _

Really? Two kids, and no one had called Nick to invite him to the wedding or to tell him he was an uncle?  _ We sent announcements for both of them, Nick. You were the one who returned every piece of mail unopened. _

For the record, there were two little nieces. Twins. Nicolle and Michelle.

Nick had squeezed Sam’s hand in a way that seems very unconscious as he uneasily changed the subject to asking his little sister how her turtle studies were going. 

Weighing what very little that he knew about Nick, and seeing the easy closeness of the siblings, Sam found the cut short conversation very strange. All he could think of is that Nick must have left on some  _ very _ bad terms to have had no contact with his whole family for ten years. Which was something that he just had to hope that as a fake boyfriend he wasn’t supposed to know, and if he was supposed to know, that the topic didn’t come up during dinner.

There was a lull between the absolutely amazing lobster dinner and desert. It was just cocktails and mingling and Sam had long ago finished his beer, only to have it replaced with a vodka martini (Anna had taken a turn ordering for him and Nick with a wink for both men). And then a second beer, and then a scotch as the meal ended and people were just enjoying the evening, digesting their meals, talking, laughing, and listening to the little string quartet that had begun playing up near the front of the room. 

Bella saw someone from work (she’d said she was in antiques or something like that) and she hauled Kali along, drinks in hands, to go and socialise. It left Sam alone at the table of siblings and he felt as oddly ok with this turn as much as he was uneasy about not having other non-Novaks around as a distraction. 

It was hard to say if Nick somehow sensed the idle stress in Sam, or if he just really was enjoying propagating their wordless lies.  _ Or  _ perhaps he was just a really touchy kind of man? In any case, Nick wore a lazy kind of smile, holding Sam’s left hand in both of his, sort of over where his plate used to be. He was listening to his brothers while playing with the nail of Sam’s thumb; slow and familiar in his little movements like this is something that the two of them did all the time. Sitting shoulder to shoulder and knee to knee and just casually touching. Sam found that the longer the night went on and the more alcohol he got in him the less he had to pretend not to be bothered. 

Alcohol wasn’t new to Sam, but high end liquor that kept showing up unexpectedly on the table had a way of going slightly to his head. He’d been drinking off and on since he was sixteen, he had a high tolerance for the stuff, but he was nursing this most recent drink, his scotch, because he felt himself smiling a little too easily while listening to Castiel explaining to Gabriel that regardless of the fact that Gabriel was as short as some of his patients, that no, he could not undergo medical procedures at a ‘pediatric rate’ because there was no such thing. 

“Come on, they’re like half of a human. It should be half the price.”

Castiel’s frown tightened just a touch. “The hospital sets the price of surgeries. Not the doctors.”

“Come on, you can put in a good word for me.”

“You don’t need a surgery.”

“Shin implants.” Gabriel countered, pointing to his younger brother with his mostly empty glass. “I could get shin implants. They do it out in China. I could be, like, four inches taller.”

And Sam remembered Gabriel from the bar last week, when the unfortunate ass grabbing had taken place. The man had been tall enough that he could have headbutted Sam square in the chest. Definitely not  _ tall _ but at the same time he wasn’t actually all that short. He just happened to come from a family of giants. 

Beside Sam, Castiel managed to look very, very tired. “You’d still be small enough that you’d have to shop in the juniors section, and would need a booster seat when riding in the car, even with an extra four inches. I don’t recommend putting your body through the stress of a surgery for really no improved quality of life.”

The laugher from Nick, Michael and Anna was harmonious. Their voices blending and the rhythm of their chuckles and giggles oddly complementary to each other. 

“Cassy, when did you learn to bite back?” Nick needed to know, his eyes bright and his grin sloppy. 

“Someone needed to be able to tell him no,” the youngest brother explained after taking a small sip of his water. “And you’d left, Nick.”

Joining in the laughing, no self preservation or defense in Gabriel as he grinned over his drink. “He’s not as good at it as you were, but damn it all if he doesn’t try.” 

Nick’s grin couldn’t get any wider. “I’m so proud of you, kid.”

“I’m a few months older than your boyfriend who is  _ not _ a kid.” Castiel nodded to Sam, including him and using his as defense. “I’m an adult now, Nick.”

“You were still wearing velcro shoes when I left. You’re going to be stuck at twelve in my mind for a while. Deal with it… kid.”

A thin line of frustration formed between Castiel’s dark eyebrows and he looked to Sam once again. “Does he do this to you too?” 

“He used to.” It had been a while since Sam had had a need to speak, the edges of his words surprisingly soft from the liquor. “We met back when I was eighteen. He’d call me kid, I’d call him Daddy… I still do sometimes when he’s being a bit of a jerk.” Lies that rolled out of Sam as easily as if they’d been the truth.

Michael was suddenly choking on his drink and Nick was beaming at Sam like he’d done something truly remarkable. 

Clearing his throat lightly, Castiel gave Sam a level look. “I suppose I could try that too, but I don’t think it would have the same effect coming from me.” 

“Probably no.” Sam agreed softly, unsure if they were sharing a joke or if the guy was really just as strange as he seemed, saying everything without a smile, in this deadpan sort of tone. Either way, it made the younger man laugh. 

There looked to be quite a few things that Michael wanted to say to his twin, but he leveled Sam with a very even look and bit back his words. It was impressive, that level of self control out of a need to show politeness to a relative stranger. Sam hadn’t really been given any info on the guy back in the car, so he only knew what he’d observed so far. Decidedly, he liked Michael, and was fairly certain that Nick had set himself up for a fairly intense chewing out once the twins got somewhere without witnesses.

Pointedly, from his side of the table, Gabriel lifted his phone and composed a short text before looking to Nick, raising his eyebrows and nodding, and nodding, and nodding as he waited for a response, never breaking eye contact. 

Everyone at the table saw it happen. It wasn’t meant to be hidden. If the man could do subtle, he hadn’t shown it. 

Tucked up against his ‘boyfriends’ side, Sam watched Nick raise a slow eyebrow and pull out his own cell phone from the inner pocket of his tux jacket. The screen was lit up; 1 unread text from Gabriel.

Sighing, Nick opened it and Sam shamelessly read over his shoulder. 

Gabe:  **don’t know what you’re playing at but I call bullshit**

It was anyone’s guess as to what the little man was referring to. Some infraction that wasn’t Sam’s business, even if he itched to shoot Nick a questioning look. One single dinner and a few drinks, and Sam was letting himself get far too invested in this lie that they were propagating. 

In place of texting, Nick stuck his tongue out at his younger brother and put his phone back away.

“Save it for your  _ boyfriend _ , Luci.” Gabe sniped. “Or should I call you  _ Daddy _ ?”

“Please don’t.” Michael muttered, sending up a soft prayer. “God, please don’t let this be a new thing.” 

Anna had lit up with Sam’s initial ‘daddy’ comment, but she’d since put on an air of superiority as she looked between Nick and Gabe. “How is it, we all got to be this old, and you two boys are still behaving like you’re back in highschool?”

“Making up for lost time.” Her younger brother answered before tossing back the last of his drink. “We’ve got to cram a decade of pettiness into a single dinner.”

“Pace yourselves,” Castiel suggested in an even tone. “Otherwise you might end up pulling something.”

Sam had decided that he liked the youngest brother as much as the oldest. But he also really liked his scotch. It’s possible that the two things went hand in hand.

Anna stood, putting the last of her drink in front of Nick as she took Sam’s hand from him, all one fluid movement, tugging Sam to his feet as she pulled him away from his date. “Come on, this is my favorite song.”

Stumbling only a little, Sam let himself get dragged like he was caught in an undertow, casting futile looks back at Nick.

“I know you two would rather be hanging all over each other back at his place,” she pointed out, looking over her shoulder and up at Sam with a sigh. “But I figure if I need a break from those asses, then you might too. They can be a bit much when they’re all together. I’d almost let myself forget.” 

There was a clear space near the stage, where other people were slow dancing to the live music. Mostly it was older couples who looked liked they actually knew the steps. Sam knew no proper dance steps, and he had a feeling that his faint memories of square dancing lessons in junior high would not serve him here. 

Though their height difference made it clumsy, Anna placed a hand on Sam’s shoulder and moved his hand to her hip, waiting expectantly. 

“I… I’m really not much of a dancer.” He knew it was a bit late to protest, now that she’d dragged him this far, but he thought it best to excuse whatever clumsiness he was about to put her through.

“No school dances wherever you came from?”

“Well, yeah, but we didn’t do this kind of dancing.”

She grinned up at him, no disappointment or judgement. She just pulled his other hand to her other hip and placed both her palms on his shoulders. “Then slow dance me like we’re thirteen and the chaperones are watching.”

That he could do. She was so tiny, he thought that if he tried he might actually be able to get his hands nearly all the way around her waist, and it made him want to be very, very careful with her. He started them rocking in a slow and platonic circle, doing his best not to care if they were getting strange looks from the other couples on the floor. 

“So, don’t get me wrong, because I love him with all my heart,” she’d tilted her chin up, nearly dancing on Sam’s toes while they swayed. “But what’s a sweet guy like you doing with a mean son of a bitch like our Nick?”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tomorrow I get to go have my last wisdom tooth pulled (I'm in my thirties and this extra tooth nonsense has gone on long enough). What this all means is that I'm going to be too doped up on pain killers into mid next week, so have an update tonight while I can still function as a human. Yay?  
> And thank you so very much to those who contributed some to my ko-fi funds! All proceeds are going to pudding cups and other soft food because that's all I get to eat for the next few days D:   
> it could be worse??

4

They ended up back at Nick’s temporary home away from home. He’d laid claim to Gabriel’s second apartment in uptown Manhattan. And technically it belonged to the  _ family _ , so it was up for grabs and he didn’t have to ask or feel bad about just claiming it as his own. Usually the place was only used for out of town guests so they’d feel a little more comfortable ― but most often if was used by the third son when him and his fiance were fighting and stubbornly sleeping under separate roofs. For the next two weeks it was Nick’s. 

With Sam’s arm heavy around his shoulders, and his siblings following, all in varied stages of inebriation, he stumbled happily from the elevator to his room that felt more like home than it had any right to. 

A decade away from this place, and so easily Nick was right back in his late teens―laughing with his brothers and sister, joking and teasing like nothing had ever changed between them. The last time they’d all been here together they’d stayed out later than planned to see a midnight premiere of some slasher flick that Nick and Anna had been very excited about, and that Gabe and Mike had been very vocally against. Not wanting to run the risk of waking Mom, or their little five year old brother Cas, they’d opted out of sneaking back into the house and stayed over in the apartment for the night. Anna took the bed and the boys sprawled over the couch and chairs, staying up far too late. Nick was torn between convincing Gabe that there was no ghost girl going to come out of their TV in the night and kill them all, or if he should wait until his little brother went to sleep to try and see if he could mimic some of those awful noises from the movie that they’d just seen. 

It had been half of a forever since they’d all been here together, and still the memory of it was little more than a nostalgic slap across the face.   

Nick did his best to not dwell on old moments of easier times.

He had tonight to handle and he needed to not start feeling mushy and sentimental about the giggling idiots behind him. Especially when there was a new and economy sized giggling idiot to worry about. 

Far as he could tell, Sam wasn’t properly drunk yet. A man his size would probably have needed considerably more than the four drinks that he’d downed during dinner to get him good and drunk. But still, the college kid weighed heavily against his side, rosy cheeked and smiling, a joke shared just between them as Nick fumbled the lock and bit his lip in frustration. 

Gabriel teased from a few feet away, “you all thumbs like that tonight, I feel bad for your big boy.” He then proceeded to laugh at his own pseudo-joke, standing there dwarfed by his wife. Kali’s high heels letting her comfortably rest her head on his shoulder as she stood behind him with her arms loosely wrapped around his chest. They looked happy. 

“That first time sex with your moose man is gunna’  _ suuuuck,  _ Luci.” Gabe sang in an appletini sweetened voice

“He’s just nervous.” Anna tried to stay on Nick’s side, even if she was laughing too.

Naturally the rest of the group felt a need to weigh in.

“Gotta be a lot of expectation built up after three years.”

“They’re not going to do it with us in there, right?”

“I hope not.”

“They’ll have plenty of time to sober up. We’re just staying for a bit.” 

A jumbled Novak chorus struck up behind Nick and he loved to hear them even while he wished that they hadn’t insisted on seeing him home. All of them arguing back at the theater that, given Nick’s track record, if they just let him walk away after dinner then it might be another ten years before they got to see him again. 

Smiling a touch awkwardly, Nick kept an arm around his ‘date’ so he wouldn’t lose track of him as the flow of people pressed into the apartment. The two of them lingered in the doorway and the taller man was very warm against him despite how damn cold it had been outside. 

“You doin’ alright?” Sam asked in a near whisper. 

“‘m always alright,” Nick answered right back on reflex. “Are  _ you  _ ok? I know you didn’t sign up for an encore appearance tonight.”

“Yeah, it’s fine.” Sam was adorable when slightly tipsy. His dimples deep and his grin broad. “As long as you call me a cab later. If you’re going to kidnap me then you’re going to have to pay to release me back into the wild.”

“I can drive you back to the dorms once everyone clears out.”

Weirdly, Sam glanced down at his lips, blinking blearily a few times before making proper eye contact and saying, “You, sir, are drunk and you’re not driving me anywhere.”

This was news to Nick. He didn’t feel drunk―but then again, Castiel had taken his keys from him and driven his rental car back into the city. He didn’t clearly remember putting up much of a fight, so it’s possible that he was over his limit. 

“I’ll be sober again by the time these freeloaders get the hell out.” He raised his voice on the last half of that sentence, looking into the apartment to watch his siblings making themselves at home. The girls had all kicked off their heels and draped themselves across the overstuffed sofa. 

He’d known Kali since they were in high school, and Anna was less than two years younger than him, so watching the two of them gave him this warm and familiar feeling in his gut―Bela threw a small wrench into the mix. She was new, she was different, she seemed to make Michael happy, so Nick tried not to let her bother him too much. The three women certainly all seemed very comfortable with one another. Sharing a cigarette and whispering back and forth as they watched Michael and Gabe rifling through the liquor cabinet. 

Gabe grinned. He’d been grinning since dessert. He’d always been a happy drunk. “Yeah, yeah, we’ll leave you two frisky sons of bitches alone in a bit. But first we deserve a little family time without  _ everyone _ watching us.” Despite the fact that he was always pulling the room around him into a whirlpool of attention with him at the center, Gabe preferred the company of his family over large groups of strangers. 

For years Nick had been harboring suspicions that the second youngest was secretly hiding a whole lot of shyness under a lot of noise.

“This is just like it used to be,” Anna sighed contently, blowing out of puff of smoke before passing the cigarette to one of the other women. “Except back in  _ the day _ Bella and Sammy were still safely far, far away, and Cassy was always asleep by now.”

“I’m still usually asleep by now,” Castiel said from the kitchen as he pulled out a line of glasses and set them carefully on the counter.

“That’s why we love ya, kid. Predictable and dependable as Mussolini’s trains.” Gabe had found himself a bottle of red wine and held it aloft. Red cheeked and ready for some bad choices. 

Michael closed the liquor cabinet with a  _ click _ of finality like he actually thought that he had any control or say over how much more was drunk tonight. Michael had always been funny like that.“This is a toasting kind of celebratory reunion. Someone make a toast.”

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to be free...” Nick’s words tapered off into a chuckle as Sam giggled softly beside him. 

“No.” His twin sniped, even if a shadow of a smile was tugging at his lips.  “A real toast.”

“One nation, under god…?”

“I almost hate to be the one to tell you,” Mike was struggling not to laugh, somewhere between frustration and amusement, “but no one actually missed you, Nicky.” 

Cheerfully, Gabe added, “and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us….” as he popped the cork and started pouring.  

“By the power vested in me, by the state of New York,  I now pronounce us… damned heathens.” Anna rested her liquor heavy head onto Kali’s shoulder.

Bela added nothing to the exchange, just a soft smile and as she took a drag of the communal cigarette, and Nick thought that maybe she could be ok.

“But if we're going to be damned, let us be damned for what we really are,” Castiel added softly, confusing the whole room. “… it’s... it’s from Star Trek.” He tacked on like an apology. “Dad and I have been watching it on Sunday nights.”

“Your family’s weird.” Sam whispered happily against Nick’s cheek, whisky sour breath tickling along his temple. 

“Yeah, but they’re mine.” And Nick shouldn’t be so proud of them. They were all a bunch of delinquents in their own right. Three out of the five of them had police records (though that number may have gone up since Nick last left). Probably hundreds of bad decisions between the lot of them. They rubbed each other the wrong way. They made each other angry enough to spit. But they were his family, and he’d forgotten just how much he could miss them. 

Mike was watching him from the liquor cabinet. Not mad exactly, but tight. All his cards so close to his chest. He was keeping it together pretty well, but he’d been watching his words since dinner, only a few choice phrases getting out when all the women and Sam had left the four brothers alone briefly. There was a lot left unsaid between them. Ten years is a very long time after all, and no warm fraternal embrace could smooth over everything that they’d said in place of a goodbye back then.

“So, we drink. A toast,” Gabe announced loudly. “A real toast, to… to seeing you fine group of weirdos again. It’s been too long since we were all in one place.”

Nick tugged Sam along, dragging the taller man towards the promise of more drinks, passing a glass of wine into Sam’s hands with a wink, whispering, “just one more. I promise.” 

The kid was already doomed at this point, his drinks during dinner had been all over the spectrum and with no extra help he was guaranteed to be feeling something terrible in the morning.  

Even with that promise, Sam we fearless. Fearless in a way that only a twenty-one year old kid could be. “Hey, I’m fine, old man. It’s you I’m worried about.”

“Pfft.  _ Old man _ ? What happened to ‘Daddy’?”

“Only when we’re alone.” And Sam, playing it up for anyone in eyesight of him, winked at Nick.

Gabriel was laughing again; whether at them, or at life in general, remained a mystery. “Gather round, gather round. We’ve got to make this proper or it doesn’t count.” He passed out the wine, even one to Castiel who hadn’t had anything more than water during dinner, and raised his glass. “Someone who isn’t me make a  _ good  _ toast, I’m too damn drunk to be eloquent.”

“Thank god,” Kali laughed and kicked a foot in her man’s direction.

“Mikey, you’re the oldest,” Nick pointed out, liking the look of long suffering that he got in answer. “Give us what you got!”

Clearing his throat softly, Michael squared those broad shoulders of his, looking certain even if his tone didn’t carry any kind of confidence. “Happy anniversary Dad and Bridgett,” which was probably not what any of them had been expecting to hear, but he kept going, the littlest bit of surety building behind his words. “To a Dad better than we probably deserve, and a replacement Mom that none of us wanted. We’re all here tonight because of those two. For better or worse. So… happy anniversary.”

“To Dad and Bridgett,” seemed to be the general consensus. 

As toasts went, it wasn’t a great one. But Nick raised his glass and knocked it against his brothers’ with a nod,  “Happy twenty fifth anniversary,” because if Dad hadn’t remarried himself to Bridgett after their Mom died then they wouldn’t have Castiel now. And Castiel? He was the sweetest half brother in the world, and Nick wouldn’t trade him for anything. 

If it weren't for Dad and  _ ‘Mom’  _ then the siblings wouldn't have all gathered here in this miserable city. Nick wouldn’t have been aching to hug the hell out of his sister and brothers again. He’d be back at home, probably staring blankly at his computer screen and sipping coffee while pretending that he was fine.

The toast was repeated by the cluster of people, Novak or not, and glasses were clattered together and very good wine was sipped. 

An hour later they were all still there. Promises had been made back at the dinner for everyone coming back to Nick’s for just a quick drink. A promise not kept. Anna, Bela and Gabe had become a fainting couch for Kali, her dark hair being quietly tangled by her fiance as she dozed. Michael was sitting on the floor, long legs sprawled out every which way and he rested his head against his wife’s thigh, mostly empty glass of wine in his hand. Cassy was stretched out on one of the recliners, eyes a little glassy, cheeks ruddy after his one and only glass of wine.

Nick had the last recliner. He and Sam sharing the piece of furniture like this was their first choice of seating. Their legs woven together confusingly, the younger man’s chest pressed against his back, a hand curled against Nick’s shoulder as he spoke in long, even sentences. 

“Batman obviously has significantly more stable morals than Superman. It’s his internalized sense of justice that makes him a better hero than most of the others in the DC universe. A true  _ Hero _ , in the proper definition of the word.”  Sam was an eloquent drunk, so fuck him.

Mike thought so too apparently. “Superman can fly though,” even if his argument was a little weak.

“Screw flying.” Sam rumbled, the words between him and Nick feeling funny along the older man’s spine. “It wasn’t one of his initial powers. He was supposed to be able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, but when the original animated series came out they realized how stupid it looked to draw the man jumping, all kinds of weird squatting... so they just  _ gave _ him the power of flight because it was easier to draw.”

“Dude,” Gabe was laughing softly. “You are  _ waaay _ too worked up about this.”

“It’s… it’s my older brother Dean. It’s like I’ve internalized him at some point.” Sam reasoned, and when he mentioned his brother his voice got warm. “He used to read me comic books, and he’d go on these rants whenever I started asking who would win in a fight. Man, if anyone at school ever started saying something against his beloved Batman and he’d get super defensive and start laying out his reasoning like it was a doctoral thesis.” Words tickling along the short hair on the back of Nick’s neck. “Promise me you’ll never bring up Batman to him.”

“I won’t.” He nodded along, warm and feeling adrift as he added in the first words that he’d said since the other men had started this asinine argument. 

“Are you… are you even planning to meet his brother?” Michael looked at them a little too long. “I thought Sam said that all his family is back in...in South Dakota.” 

“They are. Kansas and South Dakota.” Sam yawned softly. “But I’m going back to visit them day after tomorrow. I’ve just got one final left and then I’m headed home for the holiday.”

“Aw, Luci,” practically cooing, Gabriel batted those honey colored eyes of his. “Going home to meet the folks. That’s going to be super awkward.”

It would have been super awkward for many reasons, only Nick wasn’t going. He hadn’t been invited and wasn’t planning to. However, when lying about being in a romantic sort of relationship with someone, you can’t exactly just come out and say that you’ve no desire to meet their family.

“Oh my god, Mom and Joe and Aunt Ellen are going to love you.” Sam was laughing. “Dean is probably going to try and arm wrestle you, or take you out back and shoot you.”

“Your family not so ok with you dating an older guy?” Anna mumbled, surprising the men, because her eyes had been closed for a while now, but apparently she was still awake. 

“They… they don’t know that I’m dating a guy.” Sam told the god honest truth as he gave Nick’s shoulder a slight squeeze.

“That’s going to be one hell of a Christmas present for them,” Michael said softly, nodding as he took a slow sip of wine, watching Nick. “He’s a bit of a shock to your system even when you know he’s going to be there. Getting him as a surprise is much worse.”

Fumbling over himself for the first time, Sam tried to smooth over what he’d said. “They know I’ve been seeing  _ someone  _ for the past few years. I just never mentioned it was a guy someone.”

Which was a fairly decent cover, and Nick almost applauded, but all of this was a conversation that they needed to steer clear of. He could hear and sense that the younger man was having some difficulty keeping the lie between them straight under the liquor and the late hour. It would be a real shame if it all got fucked up with a few wrong words.

At some point Nick had given up on the idea of winning his and Gabe’s bet in any honest way. Back at the bar, the first night they met, Nick had tossed all plans out the window. 

And it had never been more than a half-assed plan to begin with. 

To win a stupid bet he wasn’t above throwing a little money around. Sam had certainly jumped in line when cash had been offered, only Nick could just tell that it wouldn’t get them any further than tonight. Sam wasn’t desperate, he wasn’t hungry, he wasn’t a gold digger. He was just a student hard up for cash. A lawful neutral at worst, and not the type to let himself get lovey over the offer of a sugar Daddy.  

It didn’t help that Nick wasn’t the sort of person that people fell in love with; not for ‘normal’ reasons any how. Luckily all he really needed to do for this bet was get Sam willing to  _ pretend  _ that they were in love. The kid had already come out with him tonight, and seemed to actually enjoy himself once the initial discomfort of ‘fancy people’ had worn off. It was very possible that Nick would be able to sweet talk the guy into a few more guest appearances at family things over the next few weeks. Might be able to bribe Sam into a staged confession of love where Gabe could hear it. 

It was dishonest―but it was Gabriel. It would have been insulting to him if Nick wasn’t lying through his teeth the whole way through this god awful bet.

This wasn’t a matter of money. Never had been.

Nick was fine on funds. He lived very comfortably off his books and his teacher’s salary.

No. This was pride. 

Gloating rights. 

It was something that he’d be able to hold over his brother’s head for years to come, because technically he was right and Gabe was wrong. 

If Sam was only interested in Nick for money? If Nick could bribe Sam into lying with him, then Nick was right about all the venom and spiteful rhetoric that he’d been spitting during his coffee two days ago with his brother. And that was great and fantastic, because that’s all that Nick wanted from this. He wanted to be right and he wanted to rub it in his brother’s face. 

And he was just barely drunk enough to think that there was nothing wrong with this plan.

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heeeey, who had a panic attack at the dentist, was too hyped so that the novocaine couldn't work, and had to get herself refereed to a dental surgeon for more tooth horror later in the month? It's this kid right here. yay...?
> 
> another chapter, because it soothes us all.  
> I like writing hungover Sam. He's a grumpy bear and it's good.

Mixing liquors was a terrible plan. A terrible plan that Sam had been fully aware of for quite some time. One that still haunted him some mornings.

Mornings like this one.

It had been a while since he’d woken up on the bathroom floor. The tile against his cheek wasn’t instantly recognizable, and that was the least of his concerns. He whole body ached like he’d spent hours doing crossfit the night before, maybe a bit like he’d been sucker punched on top of that, definitely like he’d been puking. The inside of his mouth was acidic and his throat ached all the way down into his gut.

Why he was awake right then seemed a bit of a mystery. He’d much rather be dead instead of wondering if the light filtering in from the hallway and stinging his eyes was proper daylight, or if someone had left a lamp on out there. It took him trying to sit up to realise that he was in a bathtub. A rich person’s bathtub, if the fact that Sam actually fit in it was anything to go off of. It was the kind of fixture that any full sized adult (or two very close friends) could easily lounge in. For now it was empty, which was fine all things considered, aside from the mostly clothed college boy dying of a hangover. He questioned the fact that he’d somehow traded his tie, jacket, and button down shirt for a cotton tee. Not that it wasn’t more comfortable, it was just that he seemed to be missing any memory of the part when his clothes had changed.

That’s the sort of thing that you’re supposed to worry about. Missing memories―and just how much had he had to drink last night?

Somewhere, beyond the mostly closed bathroom door, food was being cooked. Bacon, coffee, and something else by the smells, and Sam’s stomach rolled. He managed to scrambled himself out of the tub and lean over the toilet before dry heaving.

That’s how Nick found him. And it’s not like Sam had been making any attempts at impressing this guy or anything, but this was really the absolute worst. No dignity whatsoever.

“Good morning, Samshine.” The older man softly sang from the doorway. “The earth says _hello_.”

Sam groaned and let himself topple sideways, feeling the cold porcelain of the tub eat through the sleeve of his shirt and offer only marginal comfort to the fever sick sort of heat in his neck and face. “No offence, but go fuck yourself with a cactus.”

A sharp blurt of laughter from behind was the only answer.

“Why would you let me drink like that?” He begged the tub.

With an amused tone, Nick pointed out, “I’m not your mom; you’re an adult and your bad choices are your own to make.”

“Really?” Sam grunted. “You’re going to be _that_ kind of boyfriend?”

“It’s just you and me here, _mon petit chou_. I don’t have to be any kind of boyfriend.” There was no sympathy to be found. The feeling at odds with the way that he came into the room on quiet feet, pressing a glass of water into Sam’s hands. “If you can keep it down I’ve got a handful of pills with your name on ‘em.”  

Expectantly, Sam held his palm out, waiting and needy. He didn’t really care what the pills might be at this point. The tiny and bleary script printed on each pill claimed they were Aspirin and Sam tossed them back along with the entirety of the glass.  

“You insisted I set an alarm for you last night.” Nick said, towering over him like a bad dream. “You didn’t want to miss your final today.”

The word hit Sam like a physical blow.

He had a final today.

Panic got him struggling to find his footing. “What time is it?” Had he overslept? Had he missed his last test? It didn’t matter that he had an A in the class, he’d screw up his GPA if he skipped out on the exam that made up a third of his grade.

“Slow your roll, big boy. You made sure that I knew your class was at three.”

“W-what time is it?”

“It’s seven in the morning. You took your pills. Go back to sleep.”

“ _Seven_?” Sam let himself sink back to the floor, nauseous and confused and ever so slightly relieved. “How and why the hell are you awake and this functional at seven?”

“I’m still in my home time zone. The clock says seven AM―but my heart says it’s a little after noon… also I didn’t have half a bottle of wine to myself last night.” He shrugged and held out a hand to help Sam to his feet. “You don’t have to sleep in the tub again, _mon petit chou,_ come on.”

“What the hell is a _chou_?” Sam frowned, having a hard time focusing on the man whose feet were almost touching his own.

“It’s you. You are my little _chou_.” Rolling his eyes, Nick grabbed Sam’s hand and tugged him upright.

Sam didn’t like the nickname. He didn’t like much of anything right then. Not that Nick was still holding his hand. Not that all this standing business was making him run the risk of losing the pills that he so desperately wanted to keep down. Not even the fact that apparently he could catch a few more hours of sleep, brought any comfort right then. He wanted only a quiet and efficient death.   

What he got instead was a rather unimpressed man leading him down the hall of a strange home, to a strange bedroom, and pushing him down onto a strange (but comfy) bed.

“Sleep it off. I’ll bring you back to school when you’ve stopped spitting nails. You’re not a mean drunk, but you’re a bit of a bitch when you’re all hungover… just saying.”

Arguing on principle sounded pretty nice, but Sam pulled a pillow over his head instead. Sleep came easily. His body was begging for it; and he woke up under a blanket with no recollection of tucking himself in.

Sam pressed his face into a pillow for just a moment, sighing in deeply that fresh laundry sort of scent. His head only hurt with an echo of pain, dull and persistent, but not crippling. The apartment around him was cool and uninviting on the other side of his heavy blankets. When he looked around properly all he could see out the little french doors. Where he’d expected to find a window was a narrow balcony and a wall of shifting white. It must be snowing again. Snowing pretty hard seeing as any visual proof that they were still in New York was masked by the haze of white. It was time to get up. The clock on the nightstand said it was nearly noon and his stomach was actually starting to think that it missed food enough to try some lunch.  

But getting out of bed meant having to face the man who’d brought him here. Who’d _bought_ him here. Beside the clock was a glass of water, more pills, and an unmarked envelope stuffed with crisp hundred dollar bills. It was strange how an odd job to get money enough to pay for rent and tuition for the next few months could have sounded like such an amazing plan twenty four hours ago and felt so very wrong once he found himself in a bed, in an apartment, and in clothes that all did not belong to him.

He felt oddly cheap.

A little used.

And he didn’t know why.

It really was a stupid feeling to have.

Seeing as last night’s tuxedo seemed to have vanished like a pumpkin shaped stage coach at midnight, Sam wasn’t entirely sure what he was supposed to wear home. The boxers and tshirt combo wasn’t going to cut it. And he sort of wanted to call out to Nick and just ask if he could steal some jeans… but somewhere not far enough away the other man was singing softly to himself and moving things around.

The words were soft and musical and it took Sam a bit too long to realize that he wasn’t going to recognise the song, seeing as all the words that he was catching sounded like they were in French.

Awkwardly, Sam did the only reasonable thing, and went through the other man’s closet and grabbed something warm looking to wear, then he got himself a quick shower because he smelled like alcohol and bad choices.

By the time he was scrubbed and dressed and feeling almost human Nick was gone. The apartment was empty but food was on the table. Real food. A small salad and a sandwich that was mostly meat and cheese. Lunch had been made for Sam and left along with a note. The handwriting was cramped and blocky. All the letters in caps like each one was overly significant.

A SANDWICH FOR MY SAMMICH.

HOPE YOU’RE FEELING A BIT BETTER NOW?

GOOD LUCK ON THAT TEST.

THERE’S MONEY BY THE DOOR FOR YOU TO CATCH A CAB.

I KNOW I SAID I’D DRIVE YOU BACK TO SCHOOL, BUT SOMETHING CAME UP.

CAN I BUY YOU DINNER TONIGHT AS AN APOLOGY?

-DADDY

If it wasn’t for the offer of dinner than Sam would have felt a little like he was being told that his money was on the dresser and that he could see himself out. Technically he was―but without the normal connotation of a hooker that had served their purpose. He ate quickly and found a jacket to steal before heading out into the bleak afternoon.

Without any real time to study before his test, and the numbing pangs of a hangover still pressing at the backs of his eyes, Sam couldn’t be bothered to worry about the last of his finals. It was an ethics class. More opinion than facts, so the only way he really could have screwed it up would have been not going. He went, huddled down into clothes that just barely fit him, and wrote his five page essay on whether or not prostitution should be legalised. He hadn’t chosen the topic, the professor had. It wasn’t exactly irony, but it was a funny sort of coincidence that was not lost on Sam.

Even though he’d only be up and going for a few hours the day had a way of feeling very, very long. Sam trudged through the snow on his way back to his dorms, boots slipping now and then on the unshoveled, slushy sidewalks. He would have made it all the way back if he hadn’t had to take a detour down the less icy looking path that took him the long way past the library. It was as good as any place to stop and warm up a bit. His stolen jacket was worn leather, soft and creased and not so good at keeping the cold out. Most other people were either still in their finals or had already gone home, the library resting in a level of quiet that was almost jarring. It did make it easy for Sam to find a comfy chair. Glancing at his cell phone he saw that the battery had died, not surprising considering that it had never been all that good at holding a charge and he hadn’t had a chance to plug it in last night.

Sitting there quietly was only good for a few minutes before he moved down to the rows of computers. He’d been a student since he was five. Sam was institutionalised at this point, it would have been significantly much harder to _not_ do a little research when given the opportunity.

The name Nicholas Novak was typed into the Google search bar, but Sam didn’t hit enter. For whatever reason he felt like it would be cheating. Irrational, yes. However you can't just go around Googling your friends, or acquaintances. It just felt _wrong._

Instead he looked first for Charles and Bridgett Novak, and was slightly horrified to realize why the last name sounded familiar. The building that housed the math department here on campus was Novak Hall. Sam had seen the placard in passing for the past two years. He’d just never had a reason to go in there. He’d taken all his math classes online.

Wikipedia was a wealth of gossip. The family was old money. Currently mostly involved with banking, investments, but they were teamsters, union heads from back in the sixties, and a few things in the decades before that that sound a little less than legal. Apparently Charles’ first wife Margreet had died in the late eighties and he’d remarried to the woman’s older sister a few months after the funeral. There wasn’t much info on their five children, other than that Charles was the father of author Nicholas Novak.

Stubbornly, Sam didn’t click on the blue underlined link.

Instead he looked up Notre Dame’s student publications from ten years back, and was surprised when he easily found Louise Cypher. _She_ had started out writing a dubious lonely hearts column, giving relationship and sex advice to people who wrote in. The advice given was always very tongue in cheek and fairly inappropriate. He could hear it all said in Nick’s soft, low voice and Sam found himself stifling laughter more than once as he read pages of deliberately terrible advice.  

With only a little digging Sam found a trilogy of short stories by Louise that had been published in the yearly literary magazines that the univercity put out. All three were slightly terrifying and more than a little erotic. An uncomfortable combination of horror and sex that made Sam a little warm in the neck and chest. It would have been a lie to say that he didn’t immediately go and purchase a digital copy of Nick’s first book once he’d finished looking uneasily at the the short stories.

Once he made it back to the dorms and his charger he would download them onto his phone. It would give him something to read on the train ride home tomorrow morning. From where he sat at the computers he could just see a sliver of sky through the distant double doors that lead outside. The snow had let up which meant that it was time to head back out, braving the cold, and getting back to his room.

The front desk in the lobby of the dorms was manned by one of the students who lived there. Sam couldn’t remember her name, but she looked up from her laptop and grinned at him as he walked by.

“Hey, you’re Sam, right? From room 12C?”

If he hadn’t lived here for the last two years it would be unnerving to have her call him out like that. “Yeah?”

“You had a visitor stop by earlier. I didn’t let him through because he didn’t know your room number… thought it might be something weird.” She shrugged, still wearing her smile like she hadn’t really been all that bothered by the incident. “Figured you should know.”

“Tall blonde guy, looks like he hasn’t slept or shaved in a few days?” Sam had small suspicions and he knew that it shouldn’t make him smile, but it did.

She raised an eyebrow. “Nah. Black hair. Suit. Dreamy eyes. Didn’t leave a name. He didn’t seem like trouble so I didn’t call security on him.”

Sam’s smile faded. Whoever had been by to see him was most definitely not Nick, and probably wasn’t a professor since they didn’t leave a name. It could have been Reese come to see how last night’s studying went and to see if Sam could pull a shift this afternoon, though he never would have used the term ‘dreamy’ to describe the short, stocky, bear armed man. And the bar that he worked at was owned by a woman named Charlene, and most of his coworkers were women, so that was it for the list of possible explanations.

“I’ll keep an eye out I guess… thanks.” Awkwardly he went to the elevator and pushed the button for his floor, curious, confused, but not as worried as he should be.     

  



	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'd stay that this is the first chapter that's going to steer away from the fluff for a bit. But we started the story knowing that Nick has a bit of a tragic back story... and here's a taste of it. I promise it's mostly all off set with brotherly joking and Cas trying to be a good brother :D

 

“This had better be real fucking good.” Meeting his brothers for lunch was one of Nick’s favorite... and absolute least favorite things. All at the same time. And that might seem conflicting, but anyone who has brothers would understand the feeling. It’s not like he was allowed to just tell them that he was happy to see their dumb faces again. He had a reputation to uphold, and also he’d been called out of his warm, cozy apartment with no notice, to catch a cab in the snow. He’d never liked the snow.

“It’s lunch,” Gabriel grunted. “And it’s with me. So it can’t  _ not  _ be good.  I’ll even let you sit next to me if you ask nicely.”

It was a rectangular table, and Nick took Castiel’s arm and pulled his youngest brother down into the seat beside him. Better to suffer sitting across from Gabe and having to look at his ugly mug than to sit right next to him. 

Standing beside the table like an irate puppy, Gabriel crossed his arms. “Oh come on, Luci. I’m your favorite and you know it.”

“I know no such thing.” Nick said stubbornly as he took a menu from the waitress. He had to wait for Gabe to sit, and politely wait for the nice lady to take their drink orders and then leave. In the least caring way that he could manage he asked the table, “Is Mike running late or did he chicken out?”

Castiel was peacefully reading over Nick’s shoulder, ignoring his own menu in favor of invading personal space. When he answered it was from a close proximity that his big brother wasn’t used to. “He said that he had to pick his girls up from daycare early.” 

“So he’s chickening out.” Nick kept as much emotion out of his voice as possible, not sure if this news made him happy or not.

Tittering softly, Gabe saw right through whatever wall Nick was trying to throw up. It was hardly fair― but Gabriel had never once been accused of being fair. “If it counts for anything, our little niece-lets are both going through a biting phase and this isn’t the first time he’s had to go pull them out of class… so he’s probably not intentionally avoiding you, it’s just an added bonus to having cannibal children.” 

“You know, I don’t believe that he can actually produce  _ human  _ offspring.” Nick kept up whatever prickly pufferfish exterior that he could manage, even if no one was buying it.  “Pictures― or I’m calling bull.” 

He’d demanded, and both his brothers were happy to provide. While he looked over the menu he got bombarded with their phones practically filled to burst with pictures and videos of two demon children with matching dark curls and bright eyes. Nick had never liked kids all that much, not even when he was one, but even he could admit that the video of the two little girls carefully feeding their grandfather goldfish crackers was sort of… kind of… just barely adorable.

“Eh,” Nick finally managed, marking with a finger what he planned to order. “They’re too damn cute to be Mike’s. You know what you want to order yet, Cassy?”

“No one calls me that anymore, and yes.” He glanced up from the long list of various italian dishes. “Thank you for coming out with us for lunch. After last night I had the impression that you didn’t intend to leave your Sam or your bed for any length of time.”

“You should have brought  _ your _ Sam with you,” Gabe added on a little  _ too _ cheerfully. “I mean, he’s going to be our brother in law soon enough, isn’t that what you told me a few days ago?” He was calling Nick out on his wild bragging during coffee and the start of this bet, not that any reminder needed to be given. 

Unfortunately Castiel didn’t know that.

Beside Nick, their dark haired brother lit up like a christmas tree, a lopsided smile gracing his face. “You two are engaged? Nick why didn’t you say anything last night?”

“No. We’re not―fuckin’ thanks for that, Gabe. No. Sam and me aren’t getting married.”

Castiel’s face fell a little, replaced by a low eyebrowed look of confusion.

Gabriel was living for this. Grinning ear to ear. “Come on. You’ve been dating, what was it, for _ three years _ ? Wedding bells have to be on the way.”

Beside Nick, Castiel joined in, no doubt thinking that he was helping. “He seemed like a very nice young man. The two of you are obviously very close.”

“Right?” Gabriel was laying it on thick. “No one would  _ believe _ that you two only met yesterday.”

“Even if it was their first chance to meet in person, they’ve been together for years.” Placing a probably well meaning and supportive hand over Nick’s, Castiel offered an encouraging smile. “I think it’s all very romantic.” 

_ More romantic than a quick and dirty fumble in the backseat of a stranger’s car? _ Nick wanted to ask, but in his mind Cas was still only an awkward little twelve year old kid and it was a difficult transition to make. He pulled his hand away, shaking his head. “What I wouldn’t give to crawl inside that head of yours and see the world through those optimistic eyes.”

Castiel’s frown came back, but so did their waitress with their drinks, so the brotherly accusations died out while they placed their lunch ordered.

Waiting until it was just the three of them again, Gabe sipped his Pepsi through a straw, keeping tight eye contact with Nick. “I’m still trying to figure out what you did so differently than me. He sucker punches me and kicks me out of his bar. And you? For you, he makes up some bull shit story of a long distance romance while you guys hang all over each other and make kissy faces.”

For a half second Nick struggled with how to answer that one. He’d been very caught, but at the same time he hated to admit that he’d been lying in front of Castiel. His baby brother was an adult at this point, but deep down inside Nick had this weird compulsion to try and be a good example.  “Not my fault you bet that I couldn’t take my own boyfriend to Dad and Mom’s anniversary dinner. Bad luck on your part.”

“You do  _ not _ have a boyfriend.”

“Weird… I wonder who that hot young man I left back in my bed was?”

“Don’t even start with that.” Gabriel leaned back in his chair, flicking hair out of his eyes and managing to pull off a decent facsimile of a disapproving adult. “You and I both know you don’t know the kid, and you’re not gay, and you hate everything, especially yourself, and the idea of dating anyone. So what the hell are you doing?”

“It looks like I’m winning forty-k from you. As often as you lose you’d think you’d be able to recognise it by now.”

“I… don’t know what the two of you are talking about,” Castiel butted in with that flat tone that sounded so very much like his mother’s that it made Nick want to inch away. “But I’m disappointed in both of you and whatever you’ve dragged Sam into. He’s very nice and you’re both terrible people.”

It would have been great if Nick could defend himself―but after a decade apart, Castiel still knew him forward and back. 

To keep whatever peace that they could, the conversation was steered away from Nick’s ‘boyfriend’. It was nice, more neutral, to talk about how Cas’ medical fellowship was going, how were things at the bakery that Gabe owned, had Nick started on his next book yet? All the kinds of boring catching up that they had passed on the night before when they’d been too busy basking in the excitement of simply seeing one another again. Nick was almost disappointed when their meal was gone and it was time to let his brothers get back to their lives. 

They were a touchy sort of family, so it wasn’t too strange when Castil took Nick’s arm and beamed up at him with such hope. “When you get back from Christmas with Sam’s family can we have lunch again?”

Nick placed a hand over the one curled around the bend in his elbow, patting his brother’s cold fingers as they stood waiting to catch cabs going in two very different directions. He had no idea why Cas had taken an interest in him. They’d never been close. Not in age and not in their relationship. That anyone wanted to spend time with him was utterly charming. “Before I head back home? Yeah.”

“You and Sam can come to my place. I will make dinner.”

If Nick had a heart it would have fluttered at such an offer. He did his best to keep his cool; considering that Gabriel was standing at his other side it was very important to not smile. “I make no promises on bringing Sam. My sweet boy is a bit shy. You wouldn’t believe what I had to do just to get him to dinner last night.”

Snorting on a bark of a laugh, Gabriel mumbled just loud enough to hear, “I’d  _ love _ to know what you had to do.”

Nick winked down at Gabe as he gave Cas’ hand a squeeze.  “You two weirdos tell Mikey that we were all happy he bailed on us.”   

“I wished that he’d been able to come.” Castiel protested half heartedly. “It would have been nice to have us all together.”

“He would have made the food taste bad, just by existing. His dumb face being all  _ there _ and talking and ugh.”

With eyes as deep as the ocean Castiel looked up at Nick. “I hope that you can eventually forgive him. He loves you, you know.”

“What he loves is being right.” Nick pulled away from his brother, not wanting to get into this conversation any more than he’d wanted to talk too much about Sam. “I’ve got to head back. Cassy, I’ll see you after Christmas. Gabe, you can kiss that pretty fiance of yours for me and then go fuck off.”

“Oh, harsh.” Gabe didn’t seem all that bothered, though. He knew that Nick had nothing but love for him. Deep seeded and violent love.

Which was a hell of a lot more than what Nick had left for his older brother. He hated when Michael was brought up, he hated it more than he’d been the one to do it. Dinner the night before was one thing―a quick hug, a bit of laughing, all kinds of smiles and false light, both pretending that they were fine. More than fine. It was a hell of a lot harder to do without all the magic and lights and music than he’d been beaten over the head with during dinner. He’d also had a wingman. Oddly, Sam steadily at his side had made him feel more capable of facing the wreckage of what he’d left behind a decade ago.  It had given him someone to act for. Someone who didn’t know what a mess he was, someone who had a preconceived notion that Nick could preserve. 

He checked his phone during the cab ride, and was disappointed to see that he had no texts or calls from Sam, but maybe the guy was still in his tests, and maybe Nick shouldn’t be hanging too much hope on a man that he didn’t really know.  He couldn’t help a smile when he realized that he actually knew more about Sam than he did about half the girlfriends he’d ever had, and a hundred percent more than he knew about any of his one night stands. It had been a blitz attack of an introduction and life would be so much easier if everyone was required to spend an hour or two running a crash course of friendship. At least you’d have a better idea of what you were signing up for.  

Nick was more than a little bit of a hermit. If he wasn’t at school broadening the minds of squirrely kids in their twenties (demanding that they find value in old dead men like Shakespeare and Chaucer and Hugo), than he was tucked away in his apartment, or taking evening walks in the park nearby after most other humans were off having dinner. He liked his quiet. 

He didn’t like coming into his temporary home to see someone he didn’t want to talk to sitting there on his temporary couch. 

“Wow, so you just let yourself right in, Mike?” He shook off the unease, and his coat, and pretended that this was fine. “A bit of a breach in privacy, but sure.”

“Sorry I couldn’t make it to lunch.”

“No. Family obligations. I get it.” If Nick’s words came out a bit clipped it wasn’t anything that he had a conscious decision over. “Do I need to worry about your, uh, cannibalistic children coming out of the shadows and nipping my ankles?”

“The girls are with Dad. They love their grandpa almost as much as he loves them... I figured you’d rather not meet them.”

Nick bit the inside of his cheek, fuming even if the assumption was accurate.

“You’ve always hated kids.”

“...yours might be different.”

“You saying you’d like to meet them?” Mike almost put on a smile. “Bela and I would be happy to have you come over any time.”

“Don’t speak for the woman. Either you’ve told her  _ something  _ about the man you shared a womb with for nine months and she would rather chew off her own leg than spend time with me―or you’ve made a point to tell her nothing about me, in which case… I guess I wouldn’t blame you, but still fuck you.”  And that was two out of four of his siblings that he’d been able to tell that to today, so he was doing well.

Michael sat there watching Nick, elbows on his knees and a worn look to the hunch of his shoulders. “I saw that note you left on the table.”

Annoyed, Nick waved off whatever this was and went to go clean up the kitchen―only to see that it had already been cleaned up. He liked to think it was the work of Sam and not the man on the couch; that is how much he hated the idea of Michael touching his things. 

“You gave him money for a cab?”

“Really, Mike?  _ Really _ ? You’re going to get on my case for making sure that my boyfriend gets safely to school.”

“What else are you giving him money for?”

Even comfortably full of Italian food, and with the soft memories of sitting with Cas and Gabe, Nick could feel himself gearing up for a fight. Not an argument, but a proper fight. These sorts of conversations had only ever gone one way for them.

“Look, I’m just worried that your Sam is just Lilith all over again―”

“You wanna’ bring up Lil?” They’d always come back here, but even knowing that didn’t properly brace him for how much it was going to sting. “Ok, well if you want to go there, can I just say that I want to congratulate you on how well you did last night? Considering how hard it is for you to not put your dick in the people I’m dating, it was great to see you making an effort not to fuck Sam in front of me.”

That got Michael up off the couch, not coming at Nick, but suddenly walking from one side of the room to the other. Making tight fists at his side. “I didn’t come here to fight.”

Nick put himself between his brother and his brother’s predicted agitated pacing, taking the smallest bit of strength in the fact that he was taller than Michael by a few inches. “You just came here to tell me that you know what’s best for me?”

“Damn it, Nick. No.” Mike’s breathing was like a wounded thing. “I just hate seeing you fuck yourself over again.”

“Like I did with Lil?”

“Is now a good time to remind you that I met her first? That I was dating her first?” A sense of duty may have brought him here, and all kinds of self righteousness might have been hurting something deep in Michael, but he wasn’t afraid of that quiet anger seething in his brother. 

“We fell in love.” As far as Nick was concerned it didn’t matter who’d gotten there first. It had been the only time in his life that he’d felt that way about another person and he refused to have it boiled down into semantics. He pushed Michael, a rough shove to his brother’s shoulders. “You were just messing around because you could. Because you were mad at me. Because you had to be right and you didn’t care what you had to do to me to get there.”

Michael had to take a step back to keep his balance, but the warmth and worry in his eyes had fled. “She only went after you because she found out that you were set to take over after Dad. That’s not love, Nick. That’s opportunity.”

“You fucked her in my bed the day before we were supposed to get married.” He pushed his brother again, square in the chest and grunted as Mike pushed him right back. 

“I was proving a point.”

“You sure did, Michael. You sure as shit proved your point.”

“She was using you. For money. She’s a gold digger.”

“I hate you so much.”

“I was telling you for months that she’s using you, and you ignore me. I’d begged you to call off the engagement, for your own good. Then, for a pair of Louboutin shoes she cheats on you.  _ She  _ made the offer.  _ She _ set the terms―how am I the bad guy here?”

“Because.You.Slept.With.My.Fiance.” And he was positive that they’d had this exact conversation ten years ago, but it could have been ten minutes ago for how much it stung. He didn’t do ‘sad’ well. Not when anger was just as easy to grab and twice as effective. His hands closed around Michael’s shoulders as he throttled his older brother into the nearest wall. “You couldn’t just let me be happy?”

This was not the first wall that Michael had been thrown into by Nick. He took it very well. Nearly no emotion on his face as he sighed and kept up his protective older brother nonsense. “She was going to rip your heart out and crush it under the heel of her new nine hundred dollar shoes. She wanted money. Not you.”

Nick barely resisted the urge to headbutt his brother in the face. Pain and anger made him want to do stupid things. 

“You have someone new now.” Michael smoothed his hands over Nick’s upper arms, probably trying to be comforting, which was kind of insane. “ _ Maybe _ someone better? Someone actually good for you for once.”

“Don’t fucking bring Sam into this.” He slapped his brother’s hands off but didn’t move away, because retreating was not an option, because he needed to keep looming. His height and his indignation are all he really had going for him. 

“I’m just worried about you, Nick. I looked him up. The kid is… he’s broke poor. No money coming in from his family. Scholarships only took him through the first year of school. Kid’s got nothing other than two shitty jobs and growing debt. You wanna be his sugar daddy that’s your own damn business, I just want to make sure that you know what you’re doing this time.”

“You are two fucking minutes older than me. You don’t get to be a protective big brother here. I don’t need someone looking after me.”

“Someone has to look after you. Look at you. Look at your most recent book. Your main character―”

“You’ve been reading my books?”

Michael fitted his hands against Nick’s chest and pushed him away. “Course I’ve been reading your damn books. It’s the only part of you that you let me keep when you left.”

“Don’t.”

“Your main character is dead. You killed her.”

“They’re just books. She’s not a real person, Mike.”

And Michael looked at him too long and too cold. Too much silence between them. “You ended the book with a slit throat, standing at the gates of Hell. I’m… I’m worried about you. Anyone who knows you would be.”

“You forfeited your right to worry about me when you fucked my fiance.”

Which was a bad time for Michael to push Nick again, but they’d been set on bad timing since they were kids. Neither of them were ready to back down, so in place of proper words there was more shoving. 

Shoving and hitting, a sharp escalation that peaked with Michael pinning Nick face first against  the wall Nick had shoved him into earlier. His big brother was hot against his back, which is what happens when you wrestle and flail around like a pair of eight year old punks. Nick struggled, but with his right arm wrenched tight behind his back he found he couldn’t get any kind of leverage. He was left gasping softly against the wall, tasting blood. By the way his brother was panting Nick knew that at least one of his gut punches had hit hard enough to knock the wind out of him. 

“I went easy on you.” Nick lied through his blood slick teeth. 

“No. You got old.”

This was not a single glimmer of dignity in this defeated position, but Nick still argued, still kept up the fight in his words even if he knew that he’d lost. “We’re the same damn age.”

“Yeah, but one of us sits at a desk all day while the other one is still working hard in the family business.” Michael kept his body weight against Nick, not letting him up.

“I didn’t know that kneecapping people suddenly counted as a proper job, or as a fitness routine. They start teaching a class for it down at The Y?” 

“You’re my brother.” Michael sighed, pressing his head in between Nick’s shoulders. “And I love you―but why the hell do you have to be so damn difficult all the time?”

“Why can’t you ever apologize and admit that you did something wrong?” He countered. 

Sagging under what inevitably wasn’t shame but something far more pious, Michael let go and slunk back to the couch. He wouldn’t apologize. Not ten years ago when he’d been caught with his pants down, and not now, even if he could see the still fresh wound that he was rubbing salt into. “She got married, you know.”

Nick didn’t want to hear that. He focused on rubbing the stiffness from his arm as he looked out the very white window and the misty distant skyline and did his best to feel nothing at all. 

“To Crowley.” Michael went on, mercilessly. “A few months after you went AWOL.”

“ _ Fergus _ ?” It was hard for Nick to shut himself off when such insane ideas were being waved in front of him. “The poncy guy who works with Dad? He’s twice her age.”

“Says the man dating a twenty year old.”

“He’s twenty one.” Not that it mattered all that much.

“You really going to go spend Christmas with his family?”

“Well I’m sure as hell not spending it here with mine.”

“You love him?”

Nick didn’t. The answer was so simple, but he didn’t have a good way to just say ‘NO’ without his brother reading all kinds of things into it. Technically he could just come clean about the stupid bet, Michael wouldn’t be all that surprised to hear what Gabriel had tricked him into. But Nick bit his tongue. “Get out, Mike. Go home to your cute little wife and your cute little offspring. We don’t have anything else to talk about.”

“If he makes you happy then he makes you happy, and my business or not, I’m still going to worry about the fact that you’re dating a twenty  _ one _ year old kid without a penny to his name.” Not knowing when to quit was a family trait. “You have a type, Nick. Whether or not you want to admit it.”

“Do I?” Nick’s grin inevitably came off as more of a growl. “Because I’d say that a six foot four mountain of a man with mechanic’s hands is a pretty far cry from a high maintenance, medium sized blonde with store bought breasts and an ass like a greek goddess.”

“Ignoring the fact that he’s a  _ he _ ―which I’m not even going to begin trying to rationalise with you on―he  _ needs _ you. Or at least you think that he does.” He looked sad about this for some reason, but even though they were twins Michael’s expressions had always been misleading and vague. “And you need to be needed, Nick. Maybe you’d be better off with someone a little more independant, a little less helpless without you.”

“Go home, Mikey.”

“It’s obviously hard enough for you to look after yourself without babysitting some sweet-faced little college kid fresh off the farm.”

“What’s it like  _ knowing  _ that you’re so much better than everyone else? It must be exhausting living up to those expectations, Every. Single. Day.” 

“I’m just saying that the kid doesn’t have a dime to his name, and he doesn’t exactly come from a good family either.”

“Oh, and ours is just so sparklingly clean.” Nick dripped sarcasm while he wondered what it was that Michael had found, and he sort of wished that he’d done a little research of his own before taking Sam out. “Don’t go around calling my kettle black, you hypocritic little pot.”

“You like to find trouble. You don’t know how to be happy unless you’re miserable.”

“That doesn’t even make sense.” Nick was starting to feel tired now, the adrenalin leaving him hollowed and thin skinned. “Just leave me to my misery, Mike. I’m not going to come crawling back home if it goes south with Sam. I won’t be asking you to help put me back together. So stop trying to be my mom, or my wife, or big brother, or whatever the hell it is that you’re playing at, you self-righteous jerk.”

Michael got that sigh again, that wounded animal noise like he’d been the one attacked here. Still, he stood and went and found his coat. “I’m gunna’ head back. Get my girls. I can’t leave them with Dad for too long.”

“Good… that you’re leaving. Not about the Dad-thing. I don't know what that means.”

“Even with you being how you are and all,” Michael spoke so slowly, obviously choosing each word with some deliberation. “I love you. You’re my brother. And you’re stubborn. And you’re a mean son of a bitch. But I missed you and I love you.”

Nick felt oddly touched by the sentiment, but he’d rather hang on to his anger. “Shut up, Mike.”

“Sorry about your lip.”

That easy little apology left him feeling stunned. Really, truly stunned him. Nick hadn’t realized that his brother even knew the word ‘sorry’. “Yeah, well… I guess tell your pretty wife that I’m sorry about kneeing you in the crotch. Hopefully that doesn’t ruin whatever plans you two have for tonight.”  

That got a soft laugh out of Michael. “You always did fight like a prison riot… but yeah. I’ll tell her to take it easy on me tonight.”  

“Eww.”

“I’ll… I’ll maybe see you when you get back from your Christmassy meeting the parents thing?”

Nick didn’t answer.

“At least visit Dad before you flee the country again.” Michael didn’t press his previous invitation, but the earnest gaze was gently pleading.  “You know you’re his favorite.”

“Man with five kids doesn’t get to pick favorites.” Nick knew his brother wasn’t lying. Dad had never said as much, the man was more tactful than that. But announcing publicly that you’re planning to sign your whole business over to your second child sort of sets up an interesting narration that was a little too hard for Nick’s brothers, sister, and step mom, not to read into. 

Michael shrugged, because he would argue about the color of the sky with Nick, but not about their dad. That was a closed topic for reasons only he knew. 

“ _ Goodbye _ , Michael.” He’d been done with this conversation since he walked in the door, and it was a bit of a relief that it was finally coming to an end. “Go on and kiss that pretty wife of yours for me, and I’ll see you around.” 

“Yeah, and you go kiss that pretty boyfriend of yours for me.” Just a variation on something stupid that the siblings had all been telling each other since they were teens, though it had lost some of its charm after Nick and Mike had both slept with the same woman. By the nearly apologetic look that ghosted over Michael, he seemed to notice that his knee jerk response had been a bad one. “Anyway… yeah,” halting words as awkwardly waved. “See you.”

The front door opened and closed behind Michael, the man using a spare key to lock up after himself. Like it was all the most natural and non invasive thing in the world.

Finally left alone to nurse his wounds, the real and the perceived ones, Nick indulged in a silent breakdown. It took some staring numbly into the void for many long minutes until he was sure all those pesky emotions and such were stuffed back into whatever dark and miserable place that they’d clamored out of. 

If he wanted to be wholly honest with himself, that one on one brotherly reunion had actually gone a whole lot better than anticipated. Which didn’t mean that he was going to sign up to do it again anytime soon, not when there were so many other less soul killing options out there for him. 

His phone chimed.

A text from Sam. 

An affirmative text from Sam asking where Nick would like to meet for dinner. 

Grateful for any excuse to remove himself from the room that lingered with the faint smell of his brother’s aftershave, Nick shoved his phone into a pocket, pulled his coat on, and went back out into the snowy afternoon. 

  
  
  



	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I argued with myself about updating today, because hey, I just posted a chapter yesterday... but then I realized that literally no one is going to complain for extra chapters.
> 
> I really like this one

**werwolfofSF** (14:38): whats up sammy? howd your finals go??

**winchesterlosechester** (14:39): Finals were fine. How were yours?

**werwolfofSF** (14:48): not so sure about my criminal law class but everything else went alright i guess? How about you? Did you end up saying yes to the weirdo hipster  

Sam was happy to hear that most of Madison’s classes had gone well. He knew that she’d been worried about her statistics class, so it was a bit of companionable relief to hear that there was nothing to report on the math front. He leaned back in his computer chair, crooking a knee against his desk and pulling his laptop a bit closer as he settled in to tell his friend on the other side of the states just how weird his life had gotten over the last forty eight hours. 

**winchesterlosechester** (14:49): I might have said yes and I might have had a hell of a fancy night

**werwolfofSF** (15:02): how come you get all the luck out there? Weird rich straight dude paying you to come be some arm candy and piss off his fam. not fair, sam. It’s not even close to fair

Sam grinned at his computer. Her response sort of summed up the whole event.

He went and typed out a recap of the night, minus any of the fun details; he’d lied to his friend through omission. But Madison didn’t need to know Nick’s name, or who his family was, or how frigid and strange his step-mom had been. Just like Madison didn’t need to know that Sam had stayed the night at the man’s penthouse after drinking too much, or that there had been an invitation for dinner tonight. 

She would have read into it. Teased Sam that perhaps Nick hadn’t been so honest or straight in his pretenses. One dinner to piss off his family, maybe… but two dinners?  _ Two _ ?

Sam could practically see her taunting words swimming over his computer screen. But the two of them had internet dated for nearly a year and her mind always went to Sam being irresistible to anyone that he came across (despite how very untrue that was). It had been an unpleasant mix of joking and jealousy and things between them were much better as ‘just friends’. Maddy had even found herself a cute little girlfriend out at Stanford a few months back. Sam had seen pictures of the two of them on instagram, and he couldn’t be happier for his friend finding someone who could actually, physically be there for her like she needed, like Sam simply never could.   

All things had worked out for the best, except…

**werwolfofSF** (15:08): so Pixel is sick again

**winchesterlosechester** (15:08): Hell. Pancreas?

Madison owned a small and sickly terrier named Pixel, a dog that had been with her since she was 13, a present from her late grandmother. She loved that stupid little dog. And for the amount of money that had been spent on medical bills since Sam had met Madison, the woman could have purchased at least three new dogs. 

Not that Sam didn’t love dogs. He’d professed his unwavering devotion for the pooch the first time he’d ever seen a picture of her. Scruffy little thing with a short tail and one ear that stood straight up at all times. 

**werwolfofSF** (15:10): vet doesn’t know whats wrong. They’re running tests. Keeping her overnight

**winchesterlosechester** (15:11): sounds expensive

**werwolfofSF** (15:13): tests are always expensive

Sam looked towards his desk drawer, where he’d tucked his unmarked envelope of cash. It’s not like he was about to make an offer that he hadn’t made for her multiple times over the years, hell, at this point he probably half owned Pixel. But for the first time helping out his friend wasn’t going to mean skipping lunches for a few weeks. 

It was a good feeling. 

When he met Nick out front of the dorms Sam had a happy bounce to his step, dangerous to do on the icy sidewalks, but he couldn’t help himself. The money that he’d earned himself last night had been something of a relief, but actually being able to  _ do _ something with it was a great feeling. 

“Your test went well, then?” Nick had cocked a half smile as Sam folded himself into the passenger seat, misinterpreting the good mood.

Fiddling with his seatbelt, Sam hadn’t lost that happy selfless feeling that came out in grinning and easy movements. “Well, yeah. I wasn’t even worri― Whoa. Luci, what happened?”

The blonde frowned and glanced up into the rearview mirror. The tip of his tongue flicked out to taste the smear of dried blood over the split lip that certainly hadn’t been there last time Sam saw him. “Oh… I, um, I saw my brothers this afternoon.” His excuse was halting and weak, but he didn’t offer anymore as he pulled out of the parking lot and onto the street.

Sam wasn’t sure what to say to that. “Did you win?”

The older man shrugged and glanced from the road to his bruised knuckles hugging the steering wheel. 

“Well… In my mind you won.” Sam eased himself down into the seat. Not sure where they were going, and fairly certain that the lack of an immediate yes to his question meant that Nick had very actually lost. “You’re just too damn modest and humble to brag about it.”

That got a flicker of a smile out of the man in the driver’s seat. “Sam, you’ve got an older brother. You even win in a fight against him?”

Sam pressed his lips into a thin line. The answer was yes. It had been ‘yes’ since Sam was sixteen, but he didn’t want to rub it in. “We’ll say that I’m too damn modest and humble to brag if I did.”

“And if I ask him tomorrow would he say the same thing?” That hint of a smile came back, amusement moving over him like a good memory. 

A surprised laugh bubbled out of Sam. “I’d be super confused as to how and why you were asking him anything, but sure? He’d maybe back me up.”

“Well, I’m going with you to meet the folks, right? Dean will be there. I’ve already got a couple questions for him.”

A knot formed in Sam’s stomach. “Hey, uh―”

“I know. I know. You only signed up for one night of basking in the glory that is  _ me _ … but, and I’m not really asking this hypothetically so please round up to the nearest hundred, how much would it cost me to run away with you?”

A monetary amount?

Nick wanted to know how much Sam would cost.

There wasn’t a right answer for that.

“I can pay for gas for the drive out there. Food. Whatever.” The offerings strange and rushed, like he was doing his best to make this less weird than it was. “I know it’s overstepping like hell, but I don’t want to stay in this fucking city any longer that I have to. I  _ can’t _ stay here.” His eyes locked on the road and the traffic that was as good as not moving.

Sam wanted to say no. To say that he couldn’t just invite a relative stranger to his family’s Christmas. Maybe Nick needed to freak his relatives out for making him come to New York―but Sam had no such need of his own. He liked his family, and coming home with a fake boyfriend would have been an utterly bizarre thing to do to them. 

But that’s not what was being asked of Sam.

Nick wasn’t asking for another night, or even a few days of a pretend bro-mance. He was asking for an easy out. And if the split lip and the bruising was any indication, he probably needed it more than he was letting on.  

“Y-yeah.” Sam fumbled over the word, somehow making it sound like two. “Sure. But, um, I’m taking the train out there, not a car. So you’ll have to buy your own ticket.”

“A train?” Nick glanced over, confusion and something too painfully close to relief making dark shadows on the edges of his mouth. “Wouldn’t it be faster to drive to…?”

“South Dakota,” Sam supplied with a suppressed smile. 

“I thought your folks were in Kansas.”

“We’re having Christmas up at my Uncle’s this year. Dean already lives out there, and it’s closer for me to get to.” Two weeks away from school and Uncle Bobby’s was just as good as going home. He’d spent pretty much every summer out there with his big brother. Learning to swim, and camp, and take cars apart, and break windows, and run from the town sheriff. Just normal kid stuff. “And a train, because I don’t own a car.”

“You don’t… yeah... ok. I guess most of the people in the city don’t own cars.” Nick shrugged and changed lanes, taking them down a street that was more potholes than pavement. “You have a license though, right? We could take my car, take turns driving.”

Even if the offer sounded nice, “I’ve already got my train ticket.”

“Then I’ll get one too.” So simple and sure of himself.  

Sam started getting that same feeling as when he’d wired money to Madison. He liked helping. He liked having chances to help his friends, and that’s sort of what the man next to him was shaping up to be, even if they’d only known each other for a little more than a day. Sam supposed that’s just what happens when you spend a night doing your best to memorise innate and mundane details of someone’s personal life so that under light scrutiny you could pass as long term lovers. It was a more intimate start to a relationship than he’d ever had before. 

“Luci?” 

“Sammy?”

Grunting softly at the hated nickname, Sam pressed on. “You coming with… it’s just as friends. Super straightforward, with extra emphasis on the  _ straight _ part.” Because that’s what they both were.

Feigning injury and shock, Nick put a hand to his heart. “Just friends?  _ Just _ friends? You’re planning to keep me as your dirty secret, aren’t you? I’m hurt.”

Swallowing down laughter, Sam did his best to keep a smile from his face. “You do remember that, despite what your family thinks, we’re not actually dating. Right?” 

“Kid, last night I held your hair while you puked on my foot. Where I come from that basically means that we’re married.”

“I…  _ oh god _ .” Embarrassment hit him in a wave, foggy memories of too much wine and sitting on the floor while his body rejected all that he’d put into it. “I-I don’t remember that.”

Nick grinned. Grinned like he thought the giant beside him getting white girl wasted on mixed alcohol and bad choices was adorable or something. “I’ll remember it in clear enough detail for both of us. And when our children ask me ‘ _ Papa, when did you know that you loved Daddy? _ ’ I’ll say ‘ _ Well, Margreet―’  _ We’ve named our first daughter after my mother _ ― ‘Margreet, when your Daddy was puking most of a three hundred dollar bottle of wine out on the bathroom floor and my bare feet and my rented tuxedo pants… that’s when I knew. Knew that we were made for each other. _ ’ And we will set a strange and unhealthy love map for our children through my memories of last night.”

Sam laughed. 

He couldn’t help himself. 

Even if he knew that he shouldn’t be encouraging Nick. 

“Yeah, well. Keep it to yourself, Luci. My family,  _ and me _ , aren’t going to understand your feelings.”

“Alright, alright.” Nick sighed through his nose. “I’ll play it cool, for your family’s sake.”

“I appreciate that.” Joking aside, Sam rose up through the comfortable teasing to give words to a sudden concern at how he imagined tomorrow might go. “My family doesn’t need to know that I’m whoring myself out to rich weirdos for rent money.” 

A funny sort of frown pulled at Nick. “We’ve all got bills to pay. No shame in that.”

“They’re… conservative people.” Sam said carefully, watching the streets creep past and he still had no clue where they were headed. “Dad almost had a heart attack when I applied for school out in California. Whole state is full of hippies and degenerates apparently.”

“Where’s the lie?”

Sam snorted lightly. “Yeah, well. Mom hated the thought of me so far away. But I’d already accepted a scholarship for Stanford… and so we compromised, and here I am in New York.”

The other man winced but said nothing, just waited for the rest of it.

Like an apology, Sam continued, “They wouldn’t get you being who you are, and you giving me money to be your boyfriend for a night would possibly kill my dad. He wouldn’t get that there was nothing weird about it. God, and Dean would never let me live it down. He’d be making  _ Pretty Woman _ jokes until we were both on our deathbeds. And the last thing I need is him to start calling me Julia Roberts again.”

Nick asked in the quiet that followed, “Mom would be ok, though?” Reading into the words that Sam hadn’t said.

“Mom would probably be ok.” Sam thought that Mary would actually like Nick. John might too, if given the proper introduction. John could be an ok guy about somethings, but almost definitely not about  _ this _ thing. 

Nodding to himself, and still playing with his lip, Nick asked slowly, “Should I try and be offended by me apparently ‘ _ being who I am _ ’?”

Yeah, that had come out a little strange and Sam regretted his choice, but he was committed to it now. “I almost googled you today.”

“So I should  _ almost _ be offended?” Nick’s eyebrows went up and restrained laughter made his words sound strange. 

“It felt like it’d be cheating.” Which Sam also regretted saying out loud. “Like it would be snooping. I figured that if there was anything I wanted to know I should just ask you… I did read your old lonely hearts column from school though―which was amazing and terrible, and if you’ve ever even tried a single one of the things that you suggested, then I feel bad for everyone you’ve ever had sex with... And I sort of downloaded a copy of your first book. I’m planning on reading it during the train ride tomorrow.”

“Eww, the first one? I’ll miss you once you finish reading it and swear to never talk to me again.”

“ ‘s no good?”

“I’ve written better.” 

Maybe a little too eager, Sam asked, “Yeah?”

And that took them on a strange conversation about good books and bad books and comparing reading lists from their time in highschool and arguing about Vonnegut. It was a weird and impersonal and highly opinionated conversation that got them all the way out of traffic and into a parking spot. It seemed a little north of Coney Island. Which meant that while they talked they’d made it all the way down into Brooklyn. Sam had been pretty damn distracted to not notice going over the bridges.

“Are we… that restaurant that your sister suggested?”

Nick blinked, confused, then smiled and shook his head. “No. There’s a bakery down a few blocks.”

“Blocks?”

“With parking how it is out here? Yeah. Blocks. You got legs. You can walk.”

“It’s snowing.”

“Oh  _ no _ . Is the Kansas boy afraid of a little snow?”

Stubborn and defensive at the jibe to his age, Sam got out of the car. He pulled his heavy winter coat tight (he’d brought Nick’s leather jacket back to its owner and left it in the back seat of the car) and waited for the other man to join him on the sidewalk. “Which way we headed,  _ Daddy _ ?”

Nick snorted, his breath condensing like a silver cloud. “Each time you say it it gets that much creepier… come on.” And, shoving his hands into his pockets, he started walking. 

Keeping close, Sam did his best to not slip on the gritty, salted sidewalk. “You managed to still not tell me what your books are about.”

“You’re going to read them no matter what I say?”

“Probably.”

“I…  _ ugh _ . The first two books were stand alones. Just whatever. They aren’t all that good. Then there’s a series that’s four books long so far and it’s… it’s a little too...a little too much like cutting myself open and letting carrion birds eat me alive.” He took a deep breath and coughed softly on the frigid air. “It’s why I write books for an american publishing company while I live overseas. People that know me don’t read the books. I like it that way.”

“So you’re saying that they’re a little... personal?” Sam was trying to figure out what the other man was telling him. 

“Every writer that puts pen to words writes things that are very, very personal. Even if they aren’t willing to admit to it.”

Sam nodded. He could remember creative writing assignments where the teacher would urge him to simply write what he knew. For a writer it almost would have been more difficult to keep every part of themselves out of their stories than to let glimpses of themselves show through the words that they put on paper.

“Did you always want to be an author?”

“No… do you always ask so many questions?” Nick flashed him a grin, a slash of white teeth in the evening light. 

“I figure if I’m going to have to look at your dumb face for the next week or so, I better get to know you as well as I can.”

“You can space it out, you know. Pace yourself a bit.”

“Could, but we already skipped the first month of friendship so I’m just fine barrelling on ahead.”

“And after Christmas when I go home and never see you again?”

Sam shrugged, but was pretty sure that the movement wasn’t visible under his heavy coat. “You’ll miss me more than I miss you. I’m amazing after all. And when you’re willing to admit just how much you miss hanging out with me, and you come back? I’ll graciously let you. Won't even say I told you so.” It was all bluster and bravado. Sam was channelling Dean, which he only usually did when drunk, but for whatever reason he was feeling defensive for just a moment. Just long enough to say something pretty stupid.

Luckily, Nick seemed to enjoy stupid. He laughed, a brittle sound that dissolved quickly in the cold. “Oh, you don’t need a friend like me. I’ll do us both a favor and disappoint you by never coming back around.”

Sam grunted. 

The smiles and joking from last night, and the night before at the bar, were still all in the right places. Maybe it was because of the scab on his lower lip and the bruising on his jaw and hands, but tonight Nick’s devil may care attitude felt a little more expertly constructed than genuine. 

“So… bakery?” Sam would rather not dwell and over analyze the man walking with him. “Aren’t they usually closed by this time of night?”

“I know the owner.”

“That’s ominous.”

“You know him too.”

“That’s more ominous.”

“Figured that you’d like a heads up before we get there. Gabriel owns a bakery.”

“A heads up when I’m too far from home to say ‘no thanks’ isn’t a heads up. It’s cheating, Luci.”

Nick grinned again. “Oh, he won’t even be in this late. It’s just a place to eat, and if the food isn’t good I get to make fun of him for it.”

Thankfully, Gabriel wasn’t around. Not that Sam was afraid of the shortest of the Novak boys, but he wasn’t up to pretending to be Nick’s boyfriend tonight. That kind of acting took a lot of mental prep, and he was enjoying whatever easy banter they had going too much to switch gears. 

It was a small bakery, one of the only store fronts on the street still lit up. The name above the door was written in Cyrillic and Sam had zero guesses at how to pronounce the unfamiliar letters.

“Nick,” and it wasn’t polite to ask, but he very suddenly was struck with an odd question. “Is your family Russian?”

“A long time ago, yeah.” If the question caught him off guard he didn’t show any sign, didn’t even bat an eye. “Back during the big Ellis Island thing in the eighteen-eighties, great, great, great grandma and papa immigrated out here. We’re mostly just  _ American  _ now, and a little French.”

Sam frowned, because that’s not exactly how geneology works.

“Mom was born in France. Dad met her when he went out there for a year of school.”

Still sort of confused and flapping his hand in the direction of the sign above the door, Sam asked his second really stupid and unnecessary question. “Do you guys speak Russian?”

Nick answered in what Sam could only assume was some flavor of Slavic, and by the tone and the tilt of his head, the words were probably slightly condescending, if not downright insulting. And seeing as Sam felt like he had that coming he just lowered his head and held his arms out at his sides in surrender. 

“Yeah, yeah. Sorry I asked.” 

A heavy hand smacked his shoulder, jarring him. Sam looked up to see the other man grinning at him, pale eyes almost colorless in this light.

Apologetically Sam sighed and offered, “most people don’t even speak English all that well. It’s just weird to meet someone who speaks three languages.”

“If it’s any consolation, I mostly only know prayers and bad words in Russian, and my accent is god  _ awful. _ ”

That oddly did make Sam feel marginally better, so he grinned back before pushing Nick off and going into the bakery.  

It had looked considerably bigger from the outside. Just a tiny lobby with three little tables beside the window opposite a big glass case that had very few pastries left this time of night. The guy behind the counter glanced up when the two men came in. He wasn’t all that old, but the fluorescent lights shone of his bald head, and there were deep crows feet on the corners of his eyes when he smiled in greeting. 

But that wam smile faltered as he focused in on the man beside Sam. 

“Nikky?” The name sounded almost like an accusation.

Nick gave the exact same awkward shrug of surrender that Sam had done outside, hands open at his sides and head lowered just enough to almost hide the lopsided smile that he wore. 

“Nikky, the hell are you doing here?”

“Me and my friend were sort of hoping for some dinner, Joseph. You guys still do that?”

The man came around the counter, he was shorter than the two customers still standing beside the doors, but he was also a fairly solid man, this Joseph. And the hug that he pulled Nick down into looked equally solid and somewhat painful. “Oi, you little prick. Welcome home. Gabriel said that you’d come back, but no one would trust that kid if he said that water was wet.” 

Nick pulled himself out of the bearlike hug, grinning with the kind of relaxed ease that he’d shown the night before when seeing his brothers again. “I’m not staying, Joe. I’m just here for a few days―and some food? We’re starving.”

It wasn’t a lie. Sam hadn’t really had any lunch, just a late breakfast of the sandwich that Nick had left for him hours ago. 

Still laughing, his deep voice like the rumble of distant thunder, the man nodded and went behind the counter. “Yeah, yeah. I’ll see what we’ve got in the back for you and your friend.” And he moved his considerable self through a little door off to the side, presumably to the back where the dinner food was kept?

It was all strange to the younger man, but he liked seeing the smile that lingered on Nick, even if it pulled at his split lip in a way that had to hurt. 

“Friend of the family?” Sam guessed out loud.

“Joe’s worked for my dad for ages. He’s good people.”

“And now he works for Gabe?”

“No. He still works for dad, mostly keeping an eye on Gabe. Someone needs to.”

Sam thought that that was a strange thing to say, but didn’t have time to question it as Joseph came back with two plates in hand. Tonight’s dinner looked to be a couple stuffed croissants, and if they tasted half as good as they smelled then the men were in store for a good meal.

Joseph left them to eat at one of the tables, nodding to Nick and telling him he’d just be in the back and to give him a shout if they needed anything. 

Nick ate slowly, sitting with his elbows on the table, and his shoes touching Sam’s. “What do you think?” For some reason he wanted to know how the younger man was enjoying the odd dinner before voicing any opinion of his own.

The croissant was flakey and buttery and delicious, the filling was ham and swiss, fairly generic and nothing special. Sam rolled a shoulder and said as much.

“My first three years in France I lived up above a bakery. I got spoiled.” Nick made a small sound, sucking on his teeth, tongue peeking out. “I mean, it’s not terrible, but I’ve had better.”

And Sam had a feeling that that food review would grow and change and become a lot more critical by the time it got to Gabriel. It was just the nature of brothers. “You gunna call out Joseph on his culinary skills?”

“ _ Pshh _ , Joe’s just here as muscle and to keep my brother in line. Gabe assured me today that he’s in charge of all the baking. Said it like he was real proud. I look forward to letting him know I was disappointed.”

Sam shook his head, but didn’t try to defend the food. He liked it. It was good enough that he wasn’t going to put it down and stop eating. But Nick didn’t strike him as the sort of person that could have his mind changed once he’d settled on something.

The two of them ate and talked about nothing in particular until Joseph came back to steal their empty plates.

“Hey,” Nick reached out and tugged at the edge of the man’s apron like a kid would. “How much do I owe you?”

Joseph barked out a laugh and pulled himself free. “Nikky, get the hell out of here. Your money’s no good and you know it.”

“You’re gunna run Gabe out of business if you keep givin’ out free dinners.”

“This place pays for itself.” The old man kept on laughing as he went back into the back of the store, talking to himself as he went. “Could serve up dead pigeons and still be pulling in a profit here.”

Rubbing a bit of grease from his hands to his pant legs, Sam frowned at Nick, but the blonde just shook his head, mouth tight like he had no intention of clarifying.

Returning from the back room, Joseph carried a little pale blue pastry box that he set on the table between Sam and Nick. “We’ve got someone coming by in a bit to pick up a few things, so you kids get out of here. Take this with you, it’s the last slice. Your brother made it fresh this morning.”

Nick glanced down at the box before he picked it up and handed it to Sam. “Thanks, Joseph.” And he stood, giving the man a one armed hug. “Tell Gabe that we’re sorry we missed him.”

“Fuck you, kid. We both know that you missed him on purpose.”

Startled, Nick’s laugh came out like a choked kind of hiss, but he didn’t defend himself, just waved goodbye and held the door open for Sam.

After they’d made it half a block in the direction that they’d left the car, Sam managed to put words to the meal, “That was… weird.”

“Was it?” Nick sounded innocent enough.

“Yeah. Kind of.”

“Eh, Joseph’s harmless, and he probably gave us cake. I’d say it was a good night.”

Sam grunted, shifting his hold on the box as his exposed fingers complained about the cold. “I guess.”

“Make up for me ditching you this morning?”

“Man, you never had anything to make up to me. You left me food and money for a cab. If anything, I owe you.”

“We’ll just go and call it all even. I don’t like keeping score. It never feels right.” 

A favor for a favor was one thing if what the person was asking for was something big and inconvenient; but Friendship was meant to be a comfortable give and take, helping and supporting because you want to, not because someone was keeping tally. And Sam could agree to them just calling it even. 

After all, Nick had given him twenty thousand dollars, it was easy for Sam to agree to most things when that kind of cash was around. 

He passed the cake box to Nick and shoved his hands into his pockets, trying desperately to warm them up. They had the sidewalk to themselves. They had the whole damn street to themselves as the snow lazily fell down around them, piling up in the gutters and in the corners where the buildings met the ground. “Why couldn’t your parent’s anniversary be any time of year other than winter? This is terrible weather to be out in.”

“Yeah, I never liked the snow either.”

It wasn’t a full blown storm at least. Just a relentless hush of snow that made the world around them seem colorless and dull. Sounds of traffic on neighboring streets coming between the buildings oddly distorted. 

When Sam heard the scream it didn’t even register. It hardly sounded human. Just a high whine like a cat, sharp and then cut off. He almost would have shrugged it off except Nick had stopped walking and turned to look at the other side of the street. There were just dark buildings, unlit stores, the kinds that have bars over the windows and signs advertising ‘Cash for Gold’ and ‘PayChecks Cashed Here’ 

There came another short, teakettle like shriek that was cut off as soon as it started.

“Hey!?” 

Sam startled, not expecting Nick’s voice to be so very loud and so very sudden.

“You alright?” Sam asked the question to the empty street, not needing an answer because screaming people are pretty much never alright.   

There were no cars in the road so Nick didn’t even bother looking both ways as he stalked to the other side of the road where the noise had come from, peering into the tall, narrow shadows between buildings. Sam came too, close on his heels, feeling on edge and expecting the worst.  

In the darkness there was movement, just black against black, sliding and scuffling softly. 

“What are you punks doing out here?” Nick was utterly fearless as he questioned the dark. 

It made Sam nervous. It’s not that he wasn’t capable of throwing down in a fight. He was always ready to take a swing at someone who deserved it―but that didn’t mean that he made a habit of challenging alleyways in seedy neighborhoods. He’d almost been mugged in his first month out here.  _ Almost  _ being the key word. He’d broken the guy’s nose and left him on the subway platform. That sort of thing just happened here in New York, unlike back at home where people left their front doors unlocked and never worried about walking home alone late at night. 

“Fuck off, Gramps.” Someone down that alley yelled out at them.

There were more scuffling sounds followed by a metallic sort of  _ thud _ . Someone kicking a garbage can over maybe, everything dampened by the cushion of snow. 

“ _ Gramps _ ?” Nick squared his shoulder, looking every inch of him offended. “I don’t care what you little pricks are up to. Fuckin’ get out of here if you know what’s good for you.”

Sam took out his phone, because, unlike Nick, he wasn’t ok trading insults with shadows.  The flashlight on his phone lit up the alleyways like a dying star, showing two punkass teens in winter street clothes, looking very ready for a fight. And Sam would have been good to let them go about whatever it is that two young men do in secluded spots late at night―except there was a third guy further down, pinning a horrified young girl to the wall, one hand tight over her mouth, a short switchblade in the other. 

There was no way that she was there willingly, not by the way that the whites of her eyes were flashing like a cornered animal’s. 

His heart grew cold, angry, Sam’s blood acidic in his veins. What the hell kind of scum of the earth drags girls to alleyways in the middle of the night? Sam didn’t know her. Sam had never seen the girl before in his life, and it didn’t matter. Without any kind of thought at all, running on hindbrain instinct, he rushed forward, grabbed the nearest guy and slammed his head into the wall. 

Dimly he was aware that Nick did roughly the same thing. 

As soon as degenerate number three let up on the girl to come help defend his rather surprised friends against the two very tall and very angry men, the girl ran. She pushed past Sam with fear and thanks on her face, and she was gone. Girl could have won olympic medals in sprinting because it didn’t take more than twenty seconds for the three little thugs to be laid out, groaning in the dirty snow, and she was nowhere to be seen. 

Sam huffed and puffed in the near silence. The little scuffle hadn’t been much of a strain, hardly more than what he’d see on a usual Saturday night bar fight at work, but the unforgiving cold air was burning his lungs and making each breath cut like a knife. He looked at his hands and even under the yellowed street lights they looked red and chaffed. 

He glanced over at Nick, to make sure that his companion was just as alright as he was, and his chest clenched. “Nick! Stop!”

With another well aimed kick to the ribs of the man closest to him, Nick glanced up, his face utterly unreadable.

“He’s unconscious.” Sam tried to explain, his heart rabbiting suddenly as the adrenaline caught up with him. “Fuck. Dude. Stop kicking him.”

“ _ Ça me fait chier _ .” He spat the words as the toe of his boot drove home one last time. There was a soft  _ crack _ and the guy on the ground moaned weakly.  _  “Fils de pute _ ,” And Nick did actually spit then, right on the guy’s unconscious face. 

“Hey, deep breath,” Sam was smart enough not to touch Nick, not until the guy remembered how to English. “Come on. It’s done. The girl’s ok. She got away… we should probably call the police or something.”

“...the police?”

“We can’t just leave these sons of bitches out here to freeze to death.”

Nick cleared his throat and almost winced. “Why can’t we?”

“Ooh, ok. Yeah. I don’t want three dead little punks on my conscious, if it’s all the same to you.” 

“Yeah, whatever.” Nick ran his hand through his mess of hair, making it stand up every which way. His tone and the wild look in his eyes didn’t match the void of any expression on his face. “You can call if you want, but the police don’t typically come around in this area, and if they do they take their time getting here. Where’s my damn cake?”

Sam spotted the little box where it had been dropped a few feet away and he bent down, scooping it up. “Here’s your  _ damn  _ cake. You hold it. I’m calling the cops. We don’t have to stay ‘til they get here, but I’m giving them the address.”

He passed off the slightly dented box and went to pull out his phone, only it wasn’t in his pocket. Which meant that, much like the cake, it had probably been forgotten and dropped at the beginning of the scuffle. 

A phone was much harder to spot than a pastry box on the dimly lit sidewalk dusted in ankle high snow.  Nick didn’t offer to help, and when Sam got frustrated enough and turned to demand a little assistance, that same sort of heart pounding hitch in his chest as before caught him.

There were dark smears along the sides of the box where Nick’s hands restlessly smoothed over the edges. He was shaking, just a bit. Shaking and quiet and maybe he’d always been just that pale, but it was really hard to tell.

“Nick,” Sam didn’t like the sound of his own voice, too tight and worried. “Please tell me that’s not your blood.”

“A little of mine, a little of his.” Nick glanced down and shifted the box until he could hold it comfortably in one hand, lightly pressing the free one to his side, eyes growing tight on the edges. “Maybe mostly mine. Can we get going? I’m starting to freeze my ass off and I didn’t have that much of one to begin with.”

And that was not even close to what Sam wanted to hear. 

  
  
  



	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At some point I will actually run out of these backlogged chapters and then updates will be only every few weeks :/ but for the time being I like being able to put us a new chapter every few days. The lovely little comments from you guys help to make these stressful no fun days out here significantly less lame and I thank you for each one <3

8

 

It would have been almost endearing to get fussed over if Nick hadn’t very clearly voiced just how fine he was. Multiple times now. Apparently Sam was incapable of understanding things like logic and sensible actions. 

“I told you, I’m  _ fine _ .”

“You’re bleeding.”

“Only a little.” Which may or may not have been a lie. It was definitely more than a scratch, but his heavy winter jacket had deflected most of the knife that had been unceremoniously jabbed at his tender middle.  

“If you won’t let me call an ambulance, can we please get back to the car and drive to a hospital.”

How do you tell such a well meaning, doe eyed, puppy of a man all the reasons why you can’t just go to a hospital after getting stabbed? Sam was obviously still some kind of innocent, despite the way that he’d just cracked a man’s skull with a brick wall. 

“Hospital legally has to report knife wounds to the police.” Nick wished that he had a free hand to run through his hair, or a free hand to do anything at all that might have calmed his nerves. “And then the police have questions, and then there’s this whole arresting me thing that I’d rather not do tonight if it’s all the same…”

“They’re not going to arrest you for self defence.”

Sam was the kind of person that Nick sometimes heard his student’s refer to as a ‘ _ sweet summer child _ ’. 

“I don’t know, despite the whole saving a damsel in distress,” who’d fucked off at first chance and wouldn’t be corroborating any kind of story, “the police might not be too keen to overlook my wooden leg full of cocaine.”

“ _ Your what _ ?” Sam’s eyes had gone comically wide.

“Oh, god. I’m  _ joking _ .” He curled just a touch around that angry, wet, throbbing in his left side, overly aware of his own heart beat at this point. “But I do sort of have an unregistered gun, and a police record.”

“I…” Wheels were turning in this kid, he thought fast on his feet, and you had to give him credit for that. “I can take the gun; they’ve got no reason to search me. You can’t just walk this off, Nick. You need stitches at very least.”

It had been a very long time since someone even half as cute as Sam had offered to stash a weapon for him. The idea sort of made Nick feel a little funny on the inside―or that might have been the slow but steady blood loss making his head goofy.  “Use my phone. Call the bakery, let them know that we’re coming back and I’m hurt.”

“Bleeding in a restaurant isn’t as good as a hospital.”

“Look, the bakery is a block and a half back the way we came, and an ambulance is at least ten minutes here and then another ten to the ER. I can also tell you right now I’m not going to make it as far as the car and I don’t trust you to carry me the rest of the way when I eat pavement.” Though the movement hurt, he stuck out his right hip, making his pocket and cell phone as accessible as he could. He’d get it out himself if he wasn’t keeping pressure on the cut and also juggling the little box of cake. “Just call Joseph, alright?”

Though he managed to look furious about it, Sam was still good at following orders.

Joseph met them half way down the block and Nick slapped away the man’s well meaning helpful arm just as he’d done with Sam. He was hurt, yes, but he could still walk damnit. He’d said as much at least five times since Sam tucked his phone back in his pocket and continued to stubbornly hover beside him like he expected Nick to keel over any second. 

Even if his steps were a little slower than he would have liked, Nick’s voice was fairly flat and even, and he was rather proud of himself as he moved steadily towards the restaurant doors.  “Joe, we still keep someone on retainer for this kind of thing, right?”

“Yeah, kid. ‘Course we do.” The older man was watching him uneasily but at least hadn’t insisted on helping like he would have (and used to) when Nick had actually been small enough to qualify as a kid. “Your brother’s on his way.”

_ Oh no _ . Nick wasn’t in any kind of state to deal with his brother right now. “I thought we were friends, Joey. Then you go calling Gabe―”

“Castiel.”

Nick couldn’t have heard right. “Excuse me?”

“Ingrid’s kids put her in a retirement home five years back, and Stefan is back home visiting family.” Joseph listed off the only two doctors that Nick had ever known out here in New York. The old woman and her nephew had been patching up Novaks and Novak associates for nearly thirty years, it was strange to think that they were gone. “So little Cassy’s all we’ve got on hand at the moment.”

Nick missed a step as his brain fought to make sense of such an insane suggestion. “Why the fuck him?”

“Because he has a medical license.”

Making a face, Nick waited while Sam silently held the shop doors open for him, a pinched look of worry on the corners of his mouth. No doubt the kid was beginning to make strange and incriminating connections over what was being said, and that was going to be super fun to address later. 

“Hey, Sam,” despite the careful and stubborn way that Nick was swallowing down every pained pitch that threatened to undercut his tone. “You didn’t sign up for this. Go ahead, take my keys and head home. I’ll catch up with you later.”

“Yeah no. Your friend gets stabbed you stay with them. Pretty sure it’s in the rulebook.”

There was no rulebook and they weren’t friends. 

But Nick still found himself smiling for some stupid reason.  “Allright,  _ mon chou _ , but you come in with me and plausible deniability goes out the window.”

“Did you see me smash that little prick’s face into the wall a bit ago?”

Nick nodded, watching as Joseph locked the doors and turned off the OPEN sign in the window.

“Keep it to yourself and I won’t tell anyone about you calling in your brother to patch you up outside of hospital hours.” Sam smiled, dimples and all, even if it didn’t quite dispel the fear and worry in his eyes. 

It was cute that Sam thought that Cassy practicing medicine outside on the hospital and risking losing his license was the worst thing that was going on here. He’d figure it out quick enough and then Nick was going to have to figure out how to keep the kid quiet. Bribery had worked well enough so far, which was nice because Nick didn’t like the idea of having to threaten the kid to keep him quiet. 

Hated the idea of someone else threatening the kid even more. 

And that was a terrible sign.

But it could almost definitely be blamed on pain and blood loss, so he chose not to think about it too hard. 

“Come on,” Joseph took from Nick the crumpled cake box and nodded to towards the back of the shop. “I don’t want you out here bleeding in sight of the window for anyone to see. An your brother’ll come around through the alley and meet us in the back room.”

“Of course he will,” because they couldn’t just do this all in any way that wasn’t one hundred percent shady. 

They didn’t have long to wait, which was nice, because as soon as Nick had sat himself down at the battered and stained work table a wave of dizziness hit him. The kind of dizzy you get when you’ve pushed yourself too hard and too far. Not for the first time in his life stubbornness overriding good judgement and bodily injury. Mildly he fought to focus on Sam, trying to gauge the kid’s reaction to the set of odd printers, sheets of cotton fiber paper, and tumble washers sitting alongside the industrial ovens and mixers.  

It was possible that Sam had no idea what a money printing set up looked like, or he might have been too polite to say anything. Either way his expression was carefully blank in the same way that Nick was so very pointedly ‘not in pain’.

There was a rattle of keys and a strained sound from down a side hall and then Castiel came into view, or at least a very rumpled and disheveled thing that resembled Castiel came into view. He wore jeans and a wrinkled T-shirt under an oversized flannel that was not suitable for this weather, which would have looked fine on any normal human, but on the slender physician it looked like some kind of disguise.  

“How bad is it?” Cas asked Joseph as he thunked a shoulder bag onto the table. 

“Don’t know. He wont let me look at it.”

Annoyed, Nick tried to sit up straight, to claim even the littlest bit of his imposing height. “I’m right here, you know.”

“And let me guess,” Cassy turned slowly and raised one dark brow, “you’re just  _ fine _ ?”

“Well, no.” He pulled his hand away from his stomach and swallowed thickly at the inky smears over his fingers and palm.  “But it’s not  _ that  _ bad.”

“Stand up, let me see it.” One had to believe that there was some bedside manner that Castiel used when working with kids that was being neglected right now, because there was no warmth to be heard. He sounded almost angry, but Nick could never remember his baby brother getting anywhere close to that emotion so it had to be some kind of close cousin. Worry perhaps?

An attempt at standing was made, but that awful dizziness pitched him sideways like a physical blow and Nick almost lost his footing, gripping the edge of the table for support. The room swam and very suddenly he had three sets of hands reaching for him, steadying him. 

“Fuck off, ya’ helpful bastards,” he hissed at the other men, wishing that he had the wherewithal to slap them away.  “I can stand on my own.”

“Sam,” Castiel acknowledge the gangly witness to this mess. “Would you be so kind as to make my brother lay down on the table since he obviously  _ can’t  _ stand on his own.”

Nick tensed, looking up at Sam whose hands were on either side of his left shoulder, cupping it with surprising strength. “Don’t you dare,” he warned the younger man. 

“I’m uh… siding with the doctor on this one.” Sam said like an apology. “No offence, but he probably knows what he’s doing, and you’re almost definitely an idiot.”

He should have been offended, he tried to be offended, but Nick just ended up leaning heavily between Sam and Joseph while the two easily muscled him down onto the table like an unwilling offering to an altar. His gun dug into the small of his back in a way that had him arching off the table the moment he’d come down flat. Twisting he pulled out the fire arm, and instantly had at least five new regrets to add to this whole night. It was a nauseating kind of pain that gripped him and tore at him in protest of his movements. The gun was set down heavy at his side, metal scraping against the wood of the table and Sam was the only one who gave it a second glance. 

A rather long second glance―and Nick realized that the kid had thought he was joking about being armed. With something that felt a little too much like guilt, Nick tried to sit back up and pass the gun over to Joseph for safe keeping. Apparently he wasn’t allowed to though, because all three of the other men were catching him and pushing him back down.

“It’s just a little cut, you bastards.” There wasn’t much force behind his words, but Nick needed to pretend that he still had some kind of control over this situation.  “I didn’t agree to being manhandled like the a cheerleader on prom night.”

“Perhaps you should have considered that before doing whatever it was that got you stabbed in the first place.” Castiel had no sympathy. None at all. He just came along side the table and began pulling away at Nick’s coat and shirts with as much care as he would show a Christmas present with paper that he planned to save for later. 

Foolishly, Sam and Joe had let go of Nick’s shoulders―so there was no one to hold him back when he tried to sit up enough to see the damage that was radiating out from his middle. It was hard to tell through the blood how bad it really was. It was hard to tell anything with his little brother pushing a hand firmly into the center of his chest and forcing him to lay flat.

“Stay still,” Castiel warned with little room for argument. 

Sometime in that decade that Nick had been absent his baby brother had grown not only a backbone and about two feet taller, but also a quiet well of forceful anger to apparently draw on in times like this. 

Nick wasn’t in a great position to pick a fight right now, to remind Cassy that he was the youngest brother and had no business bossing anyone around. So instead he lay on the very uncomfortable table and examined the ceiling tiles.  

With gauze and iodine from his bag and nearly no mercy to be found, Cas started cleaning the wound. It hurt in those old familiar ways that Nick had never wanted to revisit and he closed his eyes and remembered to breathe through his nose because the only other option would have let out the quiet whimper he felt crawling up his chest. 

For a few agonizing seconds there was only rough scrubbing and that antiseptic sting that made his nose burn and his skin feel on fire, but then a warm hand settled up high on his ribcage, up above the injury and confusion forced Nick’s eye open.

Sam stood on the opposite side of the table from Cas, his attention obviously split between the determined doctor and Nick’s mid section. A quiet frown had settled over him, though it was a different flavor than the one he’d been wearing since the fight. 

“It’s not… this isn’t the first time that you’ve been stabbed.” Were the words that he finally settled on. 

Uncomfortably Nick realised that that’s what Sam’s hand was touching. Tracing over old and silvered scars. His very rough fingers following the slick line of old violence. The distraction would have been welcoming if it had been Sam hyperfocusing on literally anything else in the room. Tattoos hid some of the more superficial scars, but others had been a bit too expansive, or a bit too memorable to cover up. Stories from his youth cut and broken through his skin. They were lessons that he’d learned the hard way, but they were for his eyes alone and not to show off to other people. 

“That one’s fr’m when I was fourteen.” His words tight while he skirted around the explanation. One unsteady hand came up and he touched another scar, a pockmark sort of divit a little lower on the side that Sam stood.  “Got this a week later.”

“That one looks like a bullet wound.”

“S’because it is.”

“Oh…” Sam was looking at Nick very strangely. Not an unfamiliar sort of strange. Nick had been on the receiving end of this exact expression too many times. There was an awful lot of damage, the kind that spoke of worse things that sports injuries, and that tended to make people pause. Made them ask questions. 

Nick always hated the sorts of questions that inevitably came. 

Sam surprised him. “Which one hurt the worst?”

Nick swallowed, taking a sharp breath while Castiel threaded his suture needle. He tried to refocus on the ceiling and not tense up at the pain that he knew he was about to feel. He found Sam’s hand and moved the man’s fingers up towards his collar bone, beneath his shirt, to a scar that flowed like water, pooling and spilling in strange ways. 

“This one.”

The damage was hidden under the rucked up folds of Nick’s clothes, and blindly the younger man flattened his fingers over it, feeling the edges.

“Nick,” Castiel said with that same sort of lack of humor or kindness. “If you keep moving around I will sew your hands to your ass.”

Nick laughed, and it hurt, but he let go of Sam’s wrist and tried to stay still so that Castiel could work. “You’re in a bad mood tonight, Cassy. Did Joseph wake you?” 

“No one calls me Cassy anymore.” Cas complained softly as he started sewing with very carefully little movements. “And no. This is one of my only two nights off work. I was on a date.”

“You don’t look dressed for a date.” Nick said cautiously, looking awkwardly down at his baby brother and his mussed hair and wrinkled shirt and flannel that was too big for him.

Cas glanced up once. Just for an overly long second. It said a lot.  

“Sorry,” Nick felt marginally uncomfortable now. More so than the situation technically called for.  

“You should be,” his brother mumbled. “He works weird hours. I only get to talk to him one night a week, and instead of being curled up naked with my computer and that voice of his, I’m here sewing my ass-butt of a brother back together because he doesn’t know when to say no to a friendly knife fight.”

Nick narrowed his eyes up at the ceiling. There was a question that needed to be asked here, however,  it was none of his damn business if his brother was internet dating anyone. And if that anyone was the same someone that Cas had been with in the backseat of a car last summer then that wasn’t even close to Nick’s business either.  All he could do was try not to think on it too hard (in his mind Cassy was still just a kid and someone boning him, in person or via an internet connection was unsettling), and focus on the tight tug and pull of needle and thread through his skin, and the warm and steady beat of his heart that was a little too noticeable under the palm of Sam’s hand. 

“Joseph,” Castiel looked up from his work to find the older man who was looming like a worried mother on the far side of the room. “Can you please dispose of the  _ mess _ ?” He nodded towards the little pile of bloody gauze that had settled near Nick’s hip. “I’m sure it’s a health code violation.”

There was a small grunt of agreement and the man came and collected up the trash like he’d done it a hundred times. He left down the hall that went out to the alleyway, giving them a minute or two alone.

Cas took it as an opportunity to give good advice that was almost wholly medical. “Sam, since you’re the reasonable one here I need you to keep an eye on him for the next few days. Make sure that he doesn’t pull his stitches.”

“Yeah, um… alright?” It didn’t seem like Sam was really looking forward to the responsibility. 

“He needs to avoid strenuous activities.” Cas advised as he tied off the stitches and begin taping clean gauze in place. “That includes sex, but seeing as you two haven’t seen one another naked yet it’s possible that this restriction is not going to ruin your holiday plans.”

Confusion as to why him and Sam would have been aiming for naked at any point, was rather quickly replaced by dread in Nick. They’d screwed that one up pretty damn quick, and he didn’t really have a chance to try and make an excuse before his brother continued.

“I mean, obviously if you two make a point to take it easy, no bending and twisting or anything too strenuous, you can work around it if you really feel the mood hit you.” There was no shyness, no shame in Castiel, not even the hint of pink in his cheeks as he kept on. “If Sam does most of the work and Nick, if you make sure that he’s careful with you, it should be alright, once you two get over your shyness of being  _ together  _ for the first time.”

Sam’s hand had left Nicks chest, he’d had to in order to fold his arms over his chest and turn away.

From where Nick was laying he could see that the younger man was fighting back laughter, which would have also been Nick’s go to response for his baby brother giving him sex advice, if it wasn’t all so weird and uncomfortable. 

“I don’t know the proper names for them, but I can certainly draw some diagrams of positions that would put the least amount of stress on you, Nick.”

“No, that’s alright.” 

“I will give them to Sam for you. He is in charge, after all.”

Sam turned even further away, putting a hand to his mouth, his shoulders shaking and his ears very pink.

At least someone here was enjoying himself. 

Nick certainly was hating every moment of this. The pain was worse now, but that’s what happens when you get a knife wound scrubbed clean and sewn shut without the benefit of any anesthetic. Where as he’d been able to walk before, he was fairly certain that he’d currently have a hard time doing as much as sitting upright. 

Cas was moving around, digging through his bag and pulling out a small glass vial, and a sterile needle and syringe in crinkly plastic. 

“I don’t like shots.” Nick’s voice surprised himself, it was too tight around too much sudden fear.

His baby brother raised an eyebrow as he peeled back the plastic and plunged the needle down into the cap of the vial. “I don’t care.”

“Is that… is that something for the pain?”   

“No.”

“Then hard pass.” It wasn’t worth manning up for the injection phobia if it wasn’t even going to take the edge off the crippling pain.

“It’s a broad antibiotic and you’re going to take it.”

“Like hell I am.” Nick tried to sit up and when that didn’t work he tried to roll away off the table for safety. “You’re not my real doctor.” He should have known better than to attempt anything so childish with Castiel. His brother had very probably spent at least two semesters of medical school learning how to wrangle unwilling children into necessary medical procedures. 

“Sam, please hold your boyfriend down for me? I’d like to get this over with and get back home. There’s a naked man waiting on a Skype call for me.”

Nick would have laughed if Sam hadn’t suddenly pulled him firmly back onto the table and leaned his weight dead center into Nick’s chest. It was like being pinned under a bus. A very well meaning and surprisingly heavy bus. 

Without enough room to get in a good breath all Nick managed to do was whisper out like a betrayal, “Just whose side are you on?”

Sam held him down like he’d done it a million times before. It was possible that the kid had wrestled back in highschool, or maybe it was just left over moves from being someone’s brother, either way, he looked utterly at ease. “I’m on the doctor’s side, Daddy.” 

Now was not the time for nicknames and flirty smiles. “Don’t you dare,” Nick hissed up at the younger man.

“It’s for your own good.” Castiel pointed out as he jammed the needle into Nick’s side like a miniature javelin.  

It hurt. 

It hurt like needles always do, as underwhelming as a bug bite but all the same useless panic beat against the inside of Nick’s ribs while the sound dropped out of the world and his vision tunneled down to pinpoints. 

It was a stupid and irrational response, but it’s not like he’d willfully chosen to develop a phobia. When he was a kid they’d been camping over the summer and he’d been bitten by a bat. A regular little brown bat. And the end result was that he’d had to get painful rabies shots into his stomach for weeks ‘just in case’. The doctor’s office had learned to dread his regular visits and the yelling and biting and kicking. He’d been twelve and it had taken three nurses to hold him down. They’d been fools because apparently all it took to keep Nick in place was one single college boy who was built like a tight end receiver and didn’t care if he left bruises. 

He struggled against Sam not caring how it pulled at his new stitches. Trying to get away, away, away, because fear was irrational and overwhelming. 

“Hey, whoa. Hey,” Sam’s eyes had gone wide, the overreaction apparently taking him by surprise, and it was almost nice to know that something could upset the kid, since for some reason nothing else had ruffled him so far. “You need to breathe and you need to stay still.”

Of all the things running through his mind though the need to breathe and the wisdom of not trying to claw his way off the table were nowhere to be found. Nick made a small animal noise in the back of his throat as he watched Cas filling up the syringe a second time.

“Two of ‘em?” Sam asked with not nearly enough scepticism. 

“This one’s for the pain.”

And Castiel had another thing coming if he thought that he had any chance at getting close to Nick a second time without resistance.

Sam very patiently and very effortlessly repinned Nick’s arms back down at his sides, making soft soothing sounds as he crushed the fight right out of him. “Why didn’t you give that to Nick at the start?”

Because apparently Cas had developed a sense of spite in the last ten years. “He said he was  _ fine _ , and I was mad at being called out here tonight.” 

Under any other circumstance, Nick would have been so damn proud, unfortunately it was impossible to feel anything other than horror as Castiel leaned on his kicking legs and stuck the second needle into his side. 

He had no recollection of passing out. 

Just one second he felt like he was on the verge of a heart attack, and the next he was numbly doped up on painkillers, only remotely aware of his limbs or that there were other people in the room. 

Nick almost asked where the kid had gone, but he didn’t want Joseph to start thinking the wrong thing, and Castiel looked like he was about two seconds from walking out the door, determination on his face and no time to wait around for stupid questions. 

“Cassy,” and whatever he’d been shot up with made him practically sing his brother’s name to get his attention, all easy and comfy and happy for once. “Cassy, you kiss that pretty boyfriend of yours for me, ok?”

The youngest Novak hesitated as he shouldered his bag. “Nick… it wasn’t a deep cut. Only eight stitches, but you’re a bleeder. I’d forgotten that you got that from your mom.” He had a small frown of concern for the woman he’d never met, that Nick couldn’t even remember anymore. “Please be careful, and if you ever decide to come out here to New York and get stabbed again, it had better not be on one of my date nights.”

Nick started laughing.

“I will let you sit and bleed until the next morning, you thin blooded, date ruining, jerk.”

Nick laughed a little harder.

“That wasn’t a joke, Nick.” Castiel came back to the table, almost hesitant, before lightly patting his big brother’s shoulder. “He sent me one of his shirts in the mail a few days ago and I wasn’t allowed to unwrap it until tonight. It still smells like him. I haven’t been able to touch him since this summer but I get to smell him... and instead of laying in bed wearing only in his shirt while he touches himself where I can watch, I am here with you. You’ve always been my favorite brother, but right now I hate you.”

It was important to note that Joseph was still in the room.

It was also important to note that the grizzled old man had no comment on the whole situation.

“I’m sorry for ruining your kinky date, Cassy.”

“Stop calling me that. And I’m sorry that you felt a need to ruin your own date by getting yourself stabbed.”

Nick looked over at that very empty side of the room where Sam should have been and tried to shrug it off like he wasn’t all that bothered.  “Yeah well, if a fist fight in a dark alley wasn’t enough to scare him off I suppose having a panic attack did the trick.”

Confused, Cas went from patting his shoulder to giving it one light slap. “He just went to go bring your car around so you wouldn’t have to walk.” 

“Oh,” Nick shouldn’t have let that sentence make him as happy as it did. He would just blame the drugs. 

“And… and I remember that when I was a little kid, back before you left, that you’d always swim with a shirt on in the summers. I never really knew why, but Gabe tried to explain that you’d gotten into a fight with a bear and didn’t like to make us weaklings feel bad and unmanly when we’d witness your epic battle scars.” 

On account of his baby brother being a nearly licensed doctor, Nick had a feeling that the kid was more than aware that there’d been no bear. 

“I don’t think that… that Sam feels unmanly when he sees them. Just so you know.” And Cas gave a tight lipped smile that was probably supposed to be supportive or encouraging or something equally beyond his emotional range to show openly. 

“Yeah, ok. Stop making it weird.” Nick batted him away. “Go back to your date before he puts clothes on and goes to bed.”

“If you haven’t managed to scare Sam off just by your personality alone, than a few scars won’t do the trick. Have more confidence in yourself.”

“Good night, Cas- _ sy _ .” He stressed the unwanted end to his brother’s name.

“Enjoy meeting his parents. Try not to get yourself stabbed again―and when you get over your shyness with your Sam, please make sure that he takes you gently so you don’t pull any stitches.”

Through the haze of painkillers Nick felt warmth bloom on his cheeks. Confusion and distress that had everything to do with opiates and the idea of any man at all ‘taking him gently’ and nothing to do with Sam. “Just, good fuckin’ night already.”

Then it was just Nick and Joseph let in the back room. 

Luckily Joseph wasn’t the kind of guy to ask a lot of questions. If he was any more bothered by the idea of Nick having a very young boyfriend than he had been by the idea of Cas having an internet boyfriend, he never showed it. 

There were reasons that Joseph had been with the family for so long. The man was a vault. 

  
  



	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey, friends   
> I went from having a normal day to a bad day in a matter of minutes, so I'm going to put up a chapter, step the hell away from my computer, and take my slightly medicated self (got that wisdom tooth pulled, yay?) out to the SBucks and get a nice peachy green tea to sooth my soul.
> 
> What do you do when you feel like you want to punch a bear, but you happen to be only 5foot tall and the nearest bear is at a bear sanctuary that you don't want to get banned from, and really that bear has never done anything wrong and doesn't deserve a smack by your comically tiny hands?

 

“I’ve taken the train from Paris out to Milan a few times.” Nick was leaning over Sam just enough to watch the snow dusted platform slowly chugging out of view. It didn’t seem like bragging, just relating his short relationship with trains. “But never while I lived out here in the states.”

“No?” Sam had very mixed feelings about the way that the older man’s shoulder was brushing against his chest. “How do we measure up?”

He seemed to be actually glaring at the scenery. “Amtrak sucks.”

“Wow. Don’t be shy about sharing your feeling, Luci.”

Nick sat back, the movement stiff and careful, and Sam wondered if he should try and offer pain meds again. A courier had dropped of a prescription at Nick’s apartment early that morning (care of Castiel, who had won Sam over rather easily), and despite Sam’s enthusiasm about the older man taking pain killers after being knifed, the idiot beside him had calmly refused any of the nice little white pills. 

But, he also wasn’t complaining about the obvious pain that he was in. 

So he got to keep up his slow and guarded movements and be a stubborn ass for no explicable reason. 

And Sam got to worry. 

Everybody won? 

“This damn train doesn’t even go as far as we need it to.” Nick had been rather annoyed at the train station that morning when he’d tried to buy his ticket and Sam had had to explain that they were taking the train into Nebraska to then going to hop a bus going north up into South Dakota (a trip that was going to take them nearly forty hours). “I could have bought us both plane tickets and we would have been there before dinner.”

“Only my family isn’t expecting me until two days from now so there’d be no one to pick us up.”

“We could have driven.”

“You’re in no condition to drive.”

“I’m fine.”

Sam had been warned last night before taking Nick home. Castiel had made a list of things that his big brother was not allowed to do, and stars had been put beside the things that the man was likely to try and insist on despite doctor’s orders. Sam took that list out now. The flimsy little napkin produce from the pocket in the jeans that he’d been wearing since yesterday. He handed it over to Nick with a patient sigh.

“Doc says you’re not allowed to drive.”

“What is… you’re joking.” His tone said that he was annoyed, but the crooked smile and the crinkling on the edges of his pale eyes confessed a rather different feeling. “It’s like you’re dog sitting and he left a care list for me.”

“You think that’s cute, you should flip it over.”

Nick did―and then Nick laughed, a happy but very short sound. Pain etched deeply into his face as he curled protectively around his injured side. It took a few strained moments before he straightened and looked again at the lovely little drawings that his brother had made for his and Sam’s reference. They were only stick figures, but they were fairly explicit. Sam would have been laughing too if the man next to him wasn’t giving him such anxiety. 

“He even labeled them. Bless his heart.” He pressed the napkin to his chest and kept a hint of his earlier amusement even if it was tinged by pain. 

“I tried explaining that we were good and wouldn’t need them, but he insisted.”

“Oh, he’s my new favorite brother. He drew me porn.” Nick cooed softly. “I’m going to have it framed.”

“Do whatever you want, as long as you hold on to it.” Sam was only too happy to get it out of his possession. “I don’t want to have to explain it to my family if they somehow find it.”

“Coward.” Nick’s grin was lopsided as he carefully folded the napkin into fourths and tucked into a jacket pocket.

“Yeah, well, I’d like to think that my parents don’t know about options three through seven, and that I won’t have to be the one to explain them to them.”

“Don’t kid yourself, kid.” Nick winked the slyest of winks. “Your parents are probably at least five times kinkier than you give them credit for.”

If Sam could retreat from his body and the unwanted imagery that he was suddenly plagued with, he would. He’d go somewhere safe where moms were never naked and parents never got close to ‘kinky’.

“Let’s talk about something else.”

Nick looked more than a little pleased with the level of distress that he’d caused, sinking a little lower into his seat, his legs spilling out under the little table in front of them, a foot resting on the bench seats facing theirs. The train car that they’d settled into was practically empty, though that could change over the next few states. For now no one was there to frown at Nick’s ratty tennis shoes on the furniture. 

“Don’t know about you, but for some reason last night I slept like hell.” He crossed his arms over his chest, one hand coming up to toy with his lower lip. “I was thinking that now might be ideal for a little shut eye.”

Which didn’t sound like a terrible idea. Sam hadn’t exactly gotten a full night’s sleep out on Nick’s couch. Nick’s too small couch that hadn’t been designed with men of his height in mind. And it’s not like the train seat was any more comfortable than the couch had been, but he’d be sitting for the next two days, so he supposed that he’d need to settle in at some point. 

“Sleep if you need it, old man.” Sam teased softly before going for his phone. “I think I’ll get a little reading done.”

Nick grimaced. “School stuff?”

“No. Your stuff.” But Sam’s phone wasn’t in it’s usual right hip pocket… or the left one, or in his jacket, and then his brain caught up. He’d lost his phone last night. Everything else that had happened immediately afterwards had sort of made that little fact slip his mind.

“You never found your phone, did ya?” Nick sounded almost relieved.

Sam just sank. “Nope.”

“We can get you a new one in Nebraska… if you think that they have phones in Nebraska.”

“Yeah… probably.” He ran his hands over his face. Almost everything could be recovered. He’d have access to his email and such as soon as he got himself that new phone, or when he got back to his dorm and his laptop in a week’s time. But there were hundreds of lost photos in that phone. None of them life changing or anything, but they were still memories. 

Nick reached up towards the overhead compartment, an idle wiggle of his fingers because he obviously had no real intent to reach his things. “Be a doll,  _ mon chou _ , and get down my bag.”

Annoyed at life and not necessarily the request, Sam got to his feet and pulled down the duffle bag, setting it heavy on the table.   

“You packed pretty quick this morning,” Nick leaned forwards with a sour pinch to his mouth, opening his bag. “Noticed that you left your your laptop on the desk… also noticed that you’d said yesterday that you ‘downloaded’ my first book, which means that you probably have no way to read anything.” He pulled out a slim little MacBook, so much more sleek and fancy than Sam’s second hand Toshiba that he’d had since high school.

The laptop booted up, and Nick hammered at the keys a rather long password, which took him to a desk top that made Sam grin. 

“Wait, wait.” He reached out and touched the other man’s arm before Nick could open a browser or log into wifi or anything that might have put a window up over the background picture. “Is that you?”

Nick clicked his tongue, a strange little sound, and when Sam glanced up he saw that the man’s face had colored slightly. 

“It  _ is― _ and you’re adorable.” Looking at the digital photo of young Nick and his siblings was unexpectedly wonderful. 

It was probably someone's birthday party, streamers and balloons in the background. There was a perfect doll-like Anna, daisy chain around her head like a halo, dirt on her hands, and a bandaid on her nose. Almost coming up to the little girl’s shoulder was a cheeky grinned boy who could only be Gabriel. His  _ Sesame Street _ T-shirt hanging baggy over shorts that showed off skinned knees. Baby Castiel looked hardly old enough to walk, a mess of jet black hair, owl-like eyes and either ice cream or frosting all over his face and hands. And then there was wild eyed teenaged Michael and Nick who had their arms around each other, grinning for the camera. They couldn’t have been older than fifteen, and it felt very important to note that Nick’s hair had been dyed a vibrant blue color which paired very nicely with his leather jacket. There was even the small twinkle of an earring in his left ear. 

“Shut up. I was punk, and cool as hell.” Nick slapped away Sam’s hand.

“Adorable.” He repeated with all his heart, inwardly mourning as the other man pulled up the internet and outright purchased a digital copy of his own book.

Pushing the laptop in front of Sam, Nick settled back into his seat. “ _ Adorable?  _ Them’s fightin’ words,  _ petit chou. _ ”

If he hadn’t spent his whole life dealing with Dean’s nonsense he might have risen to the bait, but Sam shook his head, refusing to play into it. Instead he opened the book and clicked through the title page and the dedication. Settling in for what had been promised to be a less than good book. 

Nick grunted in disappointment, despite the fact that he’d been the one to give Sam access to the book in the first place, before crossing his arms back over his chest and closing his eyes like he had every intention to catch up on that sleep he’d been talking about. 

Three hours in, Sam could honestly say that he’d read worse books. Some by choice, and some for school―in either case this book of Nick’s didn’t live up to its infamous expectation. It was a story of two brothers who were demon hunters and exorcists, who one day came across a fallen angel. It had the same sort of flavor as the short stories of Nick’s that Sam had read back in the school library. A little scary, and then a little sexier than you’d expect in the face of all that scary. 

Nearly half way through, and after some rather dubious scenes between the younger of the two brothers and the rather male shaped former-angel, and Sam decided that he needed to get up and stretch his legs; to take a break before his brain had a chance to decide if it was for or against these fictional, innuendo heavy conversations. He liked both characters, but they were also both men and that made Sam want to try and form a couple reservations. Instead he closed the MacBook and stretched his arms over his head, rolling his shoulders and taking a deep breath. 

“I’ve always wanted to go back and rewrite that chapter.” Nick’s soft, almost lazy voice was startling after so long of just the white noise of the train tracks sliding beneath them.

“Got a little too... “ Sam didn’t want to say  _ ‘gay _ ’ and not just because it was grossly politically incorrect, “heavy?”

“Heavy?” Nick chuckled softly, seemingly understanding where Sam wasn’t willing to tread. “Only if by ‘heavy’ you mean gay. I’ve gotten a lot of that criticism for this book. But I will stick with the good old ‘it can’t get gay if they’re not the same gender’ argument.”

“Both dudes, and both standing way too close about ninety percent of the time.”

“Angels don’t have a concept of gender or sexuality.” Nick explained something that had been covered in an earlier chapter. “They’re divine creatures, Sam. Don’t make it weird for them.”

“And there’s nothing weird about your dude angel obviously suffering from some post traumatic pining over the guy who saved him?”

“They’re just friends.”

“ _ Just _ friends? The whole way through the book?”

“You want spoilers?”

The offer got the consideration that it deserved. Sam taking a second to wonder if it would bother him to come across an explicitly sexy chapter between the two men. And he shrugged. “Nah. I like surprises.”

Nick’s smile was just this side of threatening. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

It was a ten hour ride from New York to Chicago, where they were supposed to switch to the train that would take them on into Nebraska. It was more than enough time for Sam to finish the book, even with regular breaks to stretch his legs, or to turn to the man beside him and ask ‘what was going on in your head when you wrote this?’, because Sam really, really was starting to wonder.

By the time Sam finished, still hours ahead of their stop off in Chicago, he was feeling emotionally drained and rather uneasy. He liked scary movies well enough, but horror novels were new for him and he had this feeling that certain scenes near the end of that book were going to come bubbling up in his thoughts while he was lying in bed trying to sleep. 

He leaned back in his seat, unfocused and just sort of processing what he’d read.

“ _ And? _ ” Maybe Nick sounded a little too eager. 

“I thought that you said you liked that people you know don’t read your books.”

“There’s definitely an appeal to it… but I also said that you probably wouldn’t want to be my friend after you’d read it, so I’m kind of curious if I’m going to have to go find someone else to sit next to for the rest of this trip.”

The overall story had been dark, almost hopeless at times. There had been a truly terrifying demon that wore the face of a small child. There been betrayal and lies between the two brothers that had resulted in the older one nearly dying. Bad things had happened. Very bad things. It hadn’t been a horribly complicated story, but it had been rough and it had been memorable. 

And of all the questions that Sam could ask, the first one that came to mind was if Nick liked men. It would explain the unexpected relationship between exorcist and angel that had crumbled in a sort of heart wrenching way during the second to last chapter. But more than that idle curiosity, Sam didn’t think that the story would have worked as well if the younger brother or the angel had been female, or if the timber of their relationship had been different. It hadn’t been the main plot, or even a subplot, but it had been an important friendship for the characters and dictated how they made their bad choices in the end of things, and Sam wouldn’t have wanted it to have gone any differently. 

“I kind of liked it.” He confessed after a weighted pause, daring to look over and see the eagerness for an answer on the other man’s face.

That odd little smile faded quickly and Nick leaned away with a look of disgust. “ _ Really _ ?”

“I’ve got bad taste in books,” Sam teased, “what can I say?”

And Nick smiled at the younger man like he’d just done something amazing. 

“I’ve gotta’ say, that part near the beginning, when they’re in that house that’s all old and creaky, and then they realise that there’s actually something in the walls? Yeah, thanks for that.”

“Not a fan?”

Keeping it light even though he knew a day from now he might not be able to as easily, Sam confessed, “my Uncle’s house that we’ll be sleeping in for the next week is very old and very creaky.”

Nick was playing with the scab on his lower lip again, it made his grin pull crooked. “If you get nightmares you’re welcome to crawl into bed with me.” 

“Wowie.” Sam let his head fall back with a stifled laugh. “So, um, you have a girlfriend back in France that’s cool with all your awkward straight-man-flirting?”

Surprised, the older man raised an eyebrow. “This is flirting?” 

“That was really not an answer.”

Both his eyebrows were up then, curious and confused. “I’m just worried that someone set a really low bar for you at some point. You’ve got to raise your expectations if you think that was even half way to flirting.”

“There are times that I can’t figure out if you’re funny and I like you, or if you’re such a sarcastic and salty son of a bitch and I’m just looking forward to the end of this ridiculous adventure we’re on.”

“Is it going to sway you too far one way or the other if I tell you that I’m going to need your help standing up so I can go down to the bathroom and change my gauze like I’m supposed to do once a day?”

“Can’t stand up on your own?”

“I have tried like five times in the last hour, I just didn’t go  _ anywhere _ so you didn’t notice.”

Oh.

Not only had Sam not noticed the other man failing to get to his feet, but now he got to feel guilty for not noticing. 

“Sorry, man,” the hasty apology was thrown out as Sam clamored to his feet, stepping awkwardly over Nick’s stretched out legs in effort to get out into the aisle between seats. “You should have said something.”

“You were reading.” Nick calmly waited for Sam to trip over his legs and almost fall on his face, before taking his feet off the bench across from him and sitting more like a normal human. 

“I promised your brother that I’d take care of you.” Sam held out his arms like he was hoping for a small hug instead of just for Nick to take his hands.

Nick didn’t take the offer of help, instead he looked long and hard at Sam like he’d just met him for the first time and didn’t like what he was seeing. “That’s not going to happen.”

Sam didn’t drop his arms. He was having some serious flashbacks to when he’d been eleven, Dean sixteen, and his brother had his appendix out one summer and learned that he needed his stomach muscles to do things like stand up, and sit up, and reach things in the upper levels of the fridge. Some people just sucked at accepting help, no matter how much they needed it. The man sitting there with a hole in his side was obviously that sort of proud, independant, son of a bitch, just like Dean. “Well, I guess you can get up off your own ass then? I’ll just go down to the dining car and have some dinner, you can join me whenever...”

“You’re enjoying this.”

“How could you tell?” Sam kept his voice flat and his arms open.

Nick wrapped his hands around Sam’s wrists and tugged lightly, waiting for the younger man to do all the heavy lifting.

Sam sighed, centered himself on the unsteady flooring, and pulled Nick to his feet. It was a movement that he’d helped Dean move through at least a dozen times over, but always before on steady ground. The train was rocking near rhythmic, just off tempo enough that the injured Nick hardly held his footing for more than a second before crashing into Sam. 

“Sorry,” Nick sort of mumbled his way through an apology, righting himself and letting go of Sam in favor of a death grip on high back of the chair that he’d just left. “Sorry.”

The whole movement was far from graceful and over quickly, though, not quick enough that the younger man had missed the press of something very hard against his hip.   _ Awkward, awkward, so super incredibly awkward.  _ And he thought that he did a convincing job of keeping any surprise from his face, just like he was fairly confident that he managed not to let his gaze drift any lower than Nick’s shoulders. 

“Did… did I step on your foot or something?”

“No, man. Forget it.” 

“What’s with…” Nick narrowed his eyes and cocked his head to one side. “W-wh…” He looked accusingly at the space between them, then down at himself and scoffed. “For fuck’s sake, Sam. I’m not  _ that  _ happy to be here.” He lifted up the edge of his shirt to show the butt of a handgun peeking out from the waistband of his pants. Flat, dead steel seeming so very wrong in contrast to the soft, pale flesh it rested against. 

“Oh,” Sam hissed a soft sigh of relief before a wave of panic slammed into his chest. He crowded Nick, doing his best to hide the view of the man from the three other people that had joined their train car somewhere in the last few hundred miles. A useless attempt seeing as no one had even glanced their direction. But still, Sam’s hands fit over Nick’s as he tugged the shirt back down. 

“What the hell is wrong with you?” He pushed the words out between gritted teeth. “Are you planning to rob the train later or something?”

He raised one pale eyebrow. “No... do you think I should?” 

Sam rubbed his forehead before running a hand through his hair. He wanted to be relieved, but more importantly than that, “ _ Why _ ?”

“For safety.”

“Were on a train in the middle of nowhere.”

“Yeah, and so far I’d say that I’m feeling pretty damn safe.”

The logic was astounding. 

Silently, Sam counted backwards down from ten before asking, “Is it loaded?”

“Why would I carry it with me if it wasn’t?”

He had no words. No constructive ones at least. Moving to one side, he cleared the aisle as best he could. “Just go fix yourself up.”

“You wanna be a gentleman and get that first-aid kit out of my bag for me?”

If Sam hadn’t promised Castiel that he’d take care of Nick he would have just sat himself back down and left the obviously dangerous idiot to his own devices. Instead, he pulled open the bag that the laptop had come from earlier.  “Yeah, yeah. You going to be able to do…  _ all of it _ on your own?”

“Seeing as you get all panicky and bossy at the sight of blood?” Nick reached over and took the little zipper pouch with the red first-aid cross on the front, holding it close to his chest like a shield. “I’ll manage.”

Sam wasn’t going to argue. 

He really, really wanted to argue. 

But he didn’t.

After all, one of them had to try and at least act like a responsible adult, and it obviously wasn’t going to be Nick. 

  
  



	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and a tiny chapter, just enough to get our boys to their destination :)

10

 

There were good days for traveling, the sorts of days when the air was sweet and just on the right side of cool, so that a lowered window would let the wind in to wip against your cheeks and ruffle your hair. Those were good kinds of days to be on a train, when the landscape outside would be verdant and thriving. Untamed forests and low flat fields all growing and beautiful and bright. And then there were days like this one, days tacked onto the tail end of December when everything outside the windows was a blur of white, occasionally interrupted by a grey town or a slash of an icy river beneath a bridge. 

It all gave the two men absolutely nothing to occupy their time with other than talking to each other. 

For Nick, who usually did his public traveling with his headphones firmly in place as an excuse to not talk to whoever he’d been stuck next to, it should have been torture. If anyone had told him at the beginning of the week that he’d spend two days straight on a train making friends with a college boy who laughed a little too loud and said ‘so get this’ too often, he would have recoiled and never even left France. Family gathering be damned.

But for whatever reason here he found himself, defiant to his very nature, leaning into Sam’s shoulder. The sitting sideways took some strain off of his injury and made the kid cast guarded looks his way between the laughter. So nothing but good things to be found in the slight tilt.

After some hard bargaining, Sam had been talked out of reading the second book that Nick had written, a stand alone that had been an attempt at horror sci fi that still haunted the older man to this day.  So to fill some of that endless time that they had on their hands, book number one in a steadily growing series was purchased. 

It started with some amused chuckles that had rather quickly grown to concern when Sam started reading and Nick had joined him, only in a much more ‘out loud’ kind of way.

“Don’t do voices,” Sam pleaded as he pressed a hand to his eyes, trying so damn hard not to laugh. 

“That’s what she sounds like in my head.” More or less at least. Nick had a very specific tone of voice in mind when he’d written the main character for these books. June was small and restless, furious at all the things that had gone wrong in only the first few pages of her long and terrible story―and Nick did his best to put that anger and defiance into her words as he read to Sam.  

The young man was grinning through his pain, laughing as he demanded to know, “Why does she sound like a full grown man trying to sound like an eight year old girl?”

“Because she is eight years old in the first chapter and I am a full grown man with manly vocal chords―but I’m doing what I can. Use your imagination, Sam.”

“Do you read to your classes like this―with the voices?”

Nick wished that he could honestly say no, only he got caught up in stories from time to time, and it was nearly impossible to  _ not  _ read Lady Macbeth in a commanding feminine tone. “Every now and then...” 

Sam grinned like he could taste the half truth. “You plan to sit here and read over my shoulder the whole time?”

“Seeing as I have nowhere else to be?” One more thing that Nick hated about trains. Every other long train ride that he’d taken he’d spent the money for a sleeper ticket, so he could use the car on the train that had little fold out bed things that sounded amazing right now. But Sam had bought himself a standard fare, so Nick did too. They’d traded trains in Chicago less than an hour ago and here in their nearly empty railway car they would get to enjoy sleeping sitting upright in their uncomfortable chairs. “Figure I’ll read to you until the sun goes down, like a little bedtime story.”

“You plan to tuck me in too?” 

And as far as Nick was concerned, Sam missed a perfect opportunity to call him  _ ‘Daddy’  _ again―which was more than fine. It had been a fun joke at the start but for each next time that the kid said it Nick had to fight down an increasing desire to cringe.

“Tuck your own self in, you kinky little bastard.”

Sam blinked before letting out a startled and confused chuckle, which made Nick realise that the whole ‘Daddy’ line of thought had all been in his head and calling the kid out on it sort of made things weird.

“But you know, keep it to yourself and stop interrupting.” With the grace of an injured bird, Nick stumbled over his words and kept going. It was one of the things that he liked best about himself, his ability to keep rattling on unashamedly in the face of colossally stupid statements.  “You’ll like June. You’ve got a soft spot of lost causes and she’s tragic―”

“And she sounds like a man.” Sam pointed out gleefully.

“Don’t make me lick your face.”

The seats didn’t offer a lot of room to maneuver so Sam couldn’t lean all that far away from Nick, though he tried his best. Laughing rather unwillingly he demanded to know, “What kind of a threat is that?”

“Well it’s not something worth shooting you over and I don’t have a whole lot else to to to work with.”

Those restrained chuckles tapered off and Sam’s gaze drifted from Nick’s face down to his lap, or more likely where he knew the .9mm glock was hidden away. 

“I…” Sam pulled a face, his nose wrinkling as he fought with the words he wanted to say. He half sat up out of his seat, turning to look up and down the train car to the few sleepy passengers who all looked to be overly involved in their phones or books or children.  “Nick, um, I probably should have asked this the first time I was getting in your car and you gave me an envelope of cash.”

Off to a great start and Nick was nothing shy of dreading the question that seemed to be struggling to find its way out of the young man beside him. 

“God, this is going to sound so stupid and if the answer is no you’re never going to stop laughing at me.” He mumbled to himself before he took a sharp breath through his nose. “Are you and your family with the mob?”

“ _ With _ the mob?” Is anyone really  _ with _ the mob? What a silly question.

“Come on. I don’t know how else to ask it, man.”

That’s what Nick got for getting involved with a kid like Sam and he wished that Gabe had picked someone a little less intelligent.  “...what answer would you like to hear?”

Sam closed his eyes and whispered a heartfelt, “ _ Shit _ .”

“Because I’m a lowly literature Professor. A super vanilla type civilian with a very legitimate looking passport, and work visa, and all kinds of things that keep the police in France very happy.” It was meant to be comforting.

Letting out a breath that he’d been holding, Sam managed to look pained and annoyed all at once. “You’re not helping.”

Nick wondered why he didn’t try a little harder. Why he hadn’t just come out with a placating lie instead of some obvious half truths that cast all kinds of bad light down onto himself. “I can tell you that I’ve not been involved in anything even remotely exciting or illegal in  _ years _ , if that’s any consolation.” 

“The- the money you gave me, is it from drugs … or printed out of your brother’s shop?”

“Gambling.” Nick tried to sound reassuring because indeed Sam wasn’t a total idiot and had understood what sort of equipment he’d seen in the bakery last night. But he must have known it all when Nick was getting sewn up, and still they were here now, so maybe it wasn’t as distressing to the kid as he was making it out to be. “Some from gambling which _ isn’t illegal _ , and some from stocks and stuff, don’t worry about it.”

Every inch of Sam looked like he really, really wanted to keep on worrying about it. “Gambling?”

Why that was the part of this that Sam decided to focus on was beyond Nick, though he welcomed the digression. “Oh, I am weak for cards.”

“Poker?”

“Sure. Poker, blackjack, gin, baccarat, go fish, solitaire.” Nick couldn’t hold back the tugg of a smile he felt, relieved that Sam was so willing to let the whole topic of his family’s ‘business’ drop. “I never say no to cards.” Or really any sort of betting. Dice were almost as bad; but they were never kind for too long and he prefered to win.

Sam watched him quietly, his eyes mistrusting and the color of summer. He gave a flash of teeth in something close to a smile as he finally shook his head and pulled the laptop close again. “Please don’t tell Dean or my Aunt Ellen about you and cards. They can smell easy money and you look like you’re good at losing.”

“Rude.”

Not even looking up from the page he was on, Sam dead panned, “have you looked at yourself recently,  _ Luci _ ?”

Nick fought back the strangest urge to touch the man beside him. Sam talked to him so much like his brother used to. Poking at Nick. Teasing. Fearless and eager, and like he knew full well the trouble he was stirring and just didn’t give a fuck. It was an aching kind of nostalgia that Nick had no business feeling over a relative stranger like Sam.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about.” Nick folded his hands, lacing his fingers together to rest at the base of his ribs. “I’m gorgeous. Like a winner.”

“Yeah, with that split lip, busted up knuckles, and the way you can’t hardly move from pain. Gorgeous is definitely the word I’d use.” 

Every accusation might be true, and Nick would own them if only because denial would be ridiculous at this point.  “Flatterer.” 

Laugh lines cut deep into Sam’s cheeks, dimples dark as he tried his best to look exasperated. One finger came up to mark his place on the screen as he turned in his seat to give Nick his full attention.

“How did you say it,” pleased to be as annoying as possible, Nick tried to remember something absurd that Sam had asked him. “Don’t you have a girlfriend or something that’s going to get upset by all your straight-man flirting.”

“I’m  _ not _ flirting.”

“For your sake, I hope not.” Nick goaded. “I feel bad for any girl stuck with you. Your goofy ass smile and those hands.”

Obviously offended, Sam sat back as much as the seat would allow. “And what exactly is wrong with my hands?” 

Nothing. 

Nothing at all. 

Nick had had a lover back in his first year abroad. A man named Thomas who worked construction. He’d had rough hands like Sam’s. Hands that had left only the best kinds of bruises. But Thomas had been a one time thing (that went on nearly four months), a distraction from Lilith and Michael and everything that Nick had left behind. Not the sort of thing he wanted to bring up right now, and not the sort of comparison that Sam was bound to appreciate.

“Ladies are soft, delicate. You can’t go around pawing at them with hands like those.”

The young man doubled up on his offence, though it looked to be mostly blustering for show. “I don’t go around pawing women at all.” 

“Can you be a gentleman  _ and  _ a bartender,” Nick had his doubts. “Or a mechanic, or a lawyer? I’m sure there’s rules against it.”

“Says who?”

“Says anyone who’s ever met a bartender, or a mechanic, or a lawyer.” 

Mouthing a rather short but pointed insult, Sam turned back to the screen, lifting his finger and picking back up where he’d left off.

Nick settled right back in like he’d been sitting for the first chapter of the book, his shoulder pressed to Sam’s and his chin resting on the younger man’s shoulder. It was too familiar, too close, but he didn’t get shrugged off. One of those little benifits of their crash course friendship. Social normalities got rearranged and bypassed in light of last night’s fist fight and subsequent improvised ER adventure.  

**.:.**

“So, what’s our story?”

“Story?” Sam paused in collecting his overstuffed backpack from the overhead rack. “We’re friends. That’s the whole story.”

Pointedly, Nick didn’t smile, though he felt weirdly happy to know what Sam considered of the nontraditional relationship they had. “So, you’re actually going to just tell your family that we met three days ago and you were just so won over by my charming personality that you decided to invite me home with you?”

“If you’re hoping that I’m going to tell them that we’ve been online dating for the past three years, you’re out of luck.”

Nick snorted on a laugh, delighted at how much salt Sam could put into a single statement. “God no. I was just curious how honest we were going to be about this.”

“You’re a friend. Your family is kind of lame. You didn’t want to stay in the city for Christmas.” Sam pulled on his backpack and slung Nick’s laptop bag across his chest. “It’s pretty simple.”

When he heard it put like that? Yeah. It was pretty simple. 

Nick went to grab his duffel bag, only to have Sam pull it away from him, loading himself up like a pack mule. 

“I can carry my own bag.”

“Doctor said you shouldn’t lift anything over five pounds.”

“He’s not a real doctor.”

With a single steady look of annoyance, Sam took all the bags and shuffled towards the exit. Nick didn’t have much of a choice but to trail after like a loyal dog. A dog with no sense of balance. The bus was still slowing down as it came into the station and the slight rocking made it hell for him to keep a steady path between the rows of seats. By the time he caught up with his towering companion the Greyhound had mercifully clamored to a full stop, the air brakes screeching softly. 

“Can we  _ please _ take a plane back home when this is done?” He asked as nicely as he could, hoping that Sam might take some kind of pity.

“Plane tickets are expensive.”

“I will pay for them. It’ll be my Christmas present to you. Don’t make me spend another two days sitting on two trains and three busses.”

Sam spoke over his shoulder as he stepped down onto the platform. “I didn’t make you do anything, Luci.”

With a less than subtle grumble, Nick followed. 

Navigating stairs was more complicated than he’d like to admit, but pride kept him for asking for any kind of help as he slowly shuffled downward and wondered why such a simple movement had to hurt his side so much. 

By the time he made it down the two short steps and onto the platform he’d lost Sam. Which was not an easy thing to do considering the sheer size of the kid, and the fact that it was four in the morning and there were very few other people milling around the train station. 

The lights out here were yellowed and strained, too artificially bright and fluorescent after so long in the relative dark of the buss. It left Nick blinking painfully as he dragged his feet, wondering just where the hell Sam could have vanished to in so short of time. 

Rather quickly he spotted his giant. Sam had been pulled down, hugging someone shorter than him, wrapped tight around a man with short hair and a leather jacket. Sam was grinning, laughing and gleefully throttling who could only be his brother Dean.

At least their ride was here already. It meant that they wouldn’t be waiting out in the slushy grey snow banks, which was a plus in Nick’s book. It felt colder out here than it had back in New York. Country cold―if that was a thing. Maybe it was just the lack of tall building to cut the wind that was hissing by and stinging his ears and nose and making the simple act of breathing a little too hard. All Nick knew was that he was eager to get back inside, and maybe into a real bed.

Dean seemed to notice Nick considerably before Sam even remembered that he’d come here with company. His arms were around his brother’s neck, hand on the back of his head, standing on tiptoe just to have enough higher ground to be the dominant hugger. “You wanna take a picture, buddy? It’ll last longer.”

Nick was caught by the delightfully childish snipe directed at him. He couldn’t help but laugh.

Startled, Sam looked over his shoulder to the man that he’d dragged over many state lines, and he was laughing too.

“It’s a free country,” Dean pointed out with a look of superiority on his surprisingly freckled face. “A man’s allowed to hug his baby brother. Keep on walking, creep.”

Hugging himself against the cold, pulling his jacket tighter around himself, Nick shook his head. For whatever reason he hadn’t expected to meet a slightly smaller version of Sam tonight. He hadn’t expected someone new to call him a ‘creep’. It was fantastic. 

“Hey,” Sam’s grin was splitting him from ear to ear. “Nick, this is my brother Dean. Dean, Nick. He’s going to be staying with us.”

Almost reluctantly, Dean released Sam, stepping back to look so skeptical at the unexpected company. Which was fair. They hadn’t bought Sam a new phone back in Nebraska. There hadn’t been enough time to go find a store before they needed to hop on the northbound bus. In all likelihood this was the first that Dean was every hearing of Nick’s existence.

It could have been a lot worse.

“Nick?” Dean took roughly three seconds to study him before nodding in a sort of open approval that seemed to say ‘only if Sam’s willing to vouch for you’. “Well, alright. Let’s get going. Freezing my ass off out here.”

Just like that, Nick decided that he liked this guy.  

If his abrupt attitude and his lack of apology for the name calling wasn’t enough to win Nick over, the man’s car could have done it on it’s own. And it’s not like he even could say what make or model of car it was other than old and black as sin. Nick love it. Loved folding himself into the back seat a little less. Though he’d blame the hole in his side and not the less than expected amount of legroom he had to work with.  

“Mom and Dad should be getting in around lunch time, so you’ve got time to sleep and shower.” Dean drove with his wrists, heedless of the fact that it was pitch dark outside and the roads were inevitably icy. “Maybe two showers.”

“Shut up.” Sam was laughing. Smiling so open and happy at his big brother from the passenger seat. 

Nick knew for a fact that the kid had been deeply asleep less than an hour ago, but all that exhaustion couldn’t hold a candle to the eager puppy expression he currently wore. Maybe this is just how normal brothers act when they get to see one another after a long time apart, but Nick had his doubts. It was so much nicer to believe that most humans felt the same way about their siblings as he did. Reluctant, protective, and annoyed. Sam and Dean were too much like Nick and his own older brother used to be. The two of them laughing in the front seat and pushing at each other, teasing and joking like best friends. The longer he sat there watching the two in the soft glow of the dashboard lights, the more he started to feel weirdly homesick for something that wasn't a place. 

He let himself fall asleep in the backseat, lulled by the sounds of two happy idiots arguing over who would get the honor of cutting down this year’s Christmas tree with the same intensity as men would argue over who should be crowned the next king.   

 


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A second short chapter to go with yesterday's :)
> 
> And now for a tiny language lesson with Ham.   
>  'Pamplemousse' is French for grapefruit.   
> ... that's it. that's the whole lesson.
> 
> I've got two minds about how much French to include for our French fluent boy. (Disclaimer that I am by no means even 1/5 fluent in French, but I did study it for 3 years back in college and little bits are still stuck in my head). I'll try to provide translations for when we do get some, when it's something that is actually important and not just some little name calling.

Fold out couch beds were one of those things that you see in older movies sometimes but never expect to encounter in real life. To be completely honest, Nick would have been willing to swear that they weren't real at all, like robot maids or food tablets that would magically turn into a four course chicken dinner when you put it in the microwave. 

But he was here waking up in one all the same, groggy and sore, stretched out on this uncomfortable monstrosity that had been unfolded from an innocent looking checker patterned couch. The mattress couldn’t have been more than two inches thick, which hardly qualified it as being more comfortable than either the train or the many busses where he’d spent the last two days. 

And even if the last few days and nights’ worth of sleep had been fitfully and weirdly spaced, they’d been consistent in their crappiness. Sam always stretched out to his right, always stalwartly not complaining that humans shouldn’t have to suffer through things like this. 

He looked over at the young man who was still unconscious, snoring softly, little damp spot on his pillowcase under the corner of his mouth. Apparently the sleeping arrangements didn’t bother him one bit. Then again, Nick shouldn’t have been at all surprised, seeing as the kid hadn’t blinked when his older brother had folded out the bed and tossed down a pile of heavy and faded flannel topped quilts. 

Plaid quilts. 

Plaid. 

This was not the sort of slumming it that Nick was used to, but he wasn’t about to complain because it was still amazingly better than being back in New York. He’d just adjust his expectations for this trip and try to think of it as more of a summer camp kind of arrangement. Wilderness survival, because that’s what plaid quilts felt like.

Wincing from the hole in his side, he slipped out of bed, grabbed the strap of his duffle bag and dragged it along behind him like so much dead weight. 

Dean lived in a little one bedroom apartment style home above the mechanic’s shop that the brothers’ uncle owned. He found the bathroom easy enough, determined to scrub off the stink of travel, and he approached the whole task with optimism that was quickly crushed. It took a lot of little movements to undress and scrub and change his bandages and redress. And the culmination of all those little movements made his side throb. 

Three times he’d had to stop and close his eyes, taking a moment to slow his ragged breaths. He had half a mind to go ask Sam where those pills that Castiel had prescribed had been tucked away. Only, he’d seen the label on the bottle and it wasn’t exactly children’s tylenol that his baby brother had hooked him up with. It was the good stuff―and that made it fairly evident that the youngest Novak had never been told about teenage Nick’s long battle with narcotics that had followed him into his early twenties. 

It was sort of nice knowing that no one had spilled those beans while he’d been gone. For some reason his family had decided to let him keep a little bit of dignity in Castiel’s eye.

Not that that small comfort did anything to undercut the pain. 

Dean must have been living alone for a long time, or his relationship with Sam was just a very different kind of casual than Nick was used to, because the man didn’t even knock before opening the bathroom door. Half asleep, he blinked about fifty times before he seemed to make sense of the stranger standing half naked at the sink. 

“Oh,” he finally mumbled and scratched his stomach under an AC/DC T-shirt that might have been black in a previous life. “Hey… you just get your appendix out or somethin’?” Which was not the same as an apology for walking in, or even halfway to seeing himself back out of the little room like a polite and normal human would.

Nick looked down at all the old scars and the waterfall of colored ink that he’d bought to hide most of them. The newest one, the angry red cut over his hip with it’s careful little black stitches all in a perfect line, could almost pass for an appendectomy scar.

He fiddle with the little roll of medical tape he was awkwardly holding, tearing off two strips and sticking them to the edge of the sink. “Something like that.”

“That sucks, man.” Dean gave deep insight as he reached around Nick to grab his toothbrush from a little cup on the counter. 

Amused, Nick ripped open the wrapper of some fresh gauze before carefully tapping it place. “Sure does.”  

“You look like hell.” Dean mouthed around his brushing, sounding much more like ‘ _ fu roo ri ell _ ’, but the way he was sizing Nick up helped in translating.

“Thank you.” Giving a small curtsy, Nick did his best not to laugh. “Three days on public transit’ll do that to a man.”

Spitting into the sink and turning on the tap, Dean nodded out towards the rest of the house. “Got aspirin and whisky on top of the fridge. Help yourself.” 

It was hard to tell if this was an offer for one or the other, or both. 

Either way, it was awful sweet of him. 

Apparently Sam’s unreasonable kindness with a side order of smarm was a family trait. 

“Thanks,” was all he could think to say as he pulled out a clean shirt and tugged it on, only wincing slightly as the methodical movement tugged his stitches in a sharp kind of way.

During the initial packing for his trip to New York, he’d made a point to add a few article of clothing specifically because he knew they would bother his family, and this shirt was one of them. Well worn with a faded drawing of a half grapefruit half moose hybrid with the word ‘pamplemoose’ written under it. As puns went, it was rather stupid and French and didn’t make much sense if you didn’t speak the language; as a comfortable shirt when he felt like shit? It was more than fantastic. Though, he sort of wished that he’d pulled something slightly less intentionally childish out of his bag.   

Dean raised an eyebrow as he put away his toothbrush. It was this curious sort of examination like he had only just noticed that Nick was there and was trying to quickly form an opinion. His gaze lingered a little too long on the tattooed edges that peeked out from under Nick’s short sleeves, and drifted to his shoulder where the worst of the scaring had never been able to be covered up properly―or maybe that was Nick’s own insecurities and the man was only trying to figure out just what the hell was going on with the moose shirt.  

“Did I already meet you on one of my trips out to visit Sammy?” Dean finally asked. “You look stupid familiar now that it’s not the middle of the night at a bus station.”

Shaking his head, he cleaned up the little mess he’d made on the counter, tucking away all his first aid stuff, seeing as he wouldn’t need it again until tomorrow morning and leaving a mess at someone else’s house was just rude. 

“You a school friend?”

“I look like a law student to you?”

“Alright, that’s fair.” Dean was unreasonably attractive when he laughed, this unapologetic grin taking over as he shrugged, all bright green eyes and freckles plain on his cheeks and nose. 

That footnote of a thought made Nick uncomfortable and he jammed it into a dark corner of his mind to be forgotten. He wasn’t here to form dubious opinions on Sam’s big brother. That felt like it would breech some kind of friendship etiquette. And even if this was a rather finite friendship between him and Sam, the kid deserved a bit of good behaviour for all the things right that he’d done so far. Nick was going to do his best to not fuck it up sooner than necessary.  

Dean was still watching him though, still smiling and still inexcusably close. “So, you’re a friend from work. Bartender or mechanic?” He’d apparently made up his mind, like there was no other physical way for two people like Sam and Nick to have met otherwise. 

“ ‘m a teacher actually.” Which was always Nick’s go to answer for when people asked what he did. It was an easier conversation than explaining that he wrote very strange stories. 

“ _ Hmph _ ?” The younger man seemed satisfied, and didn’t follow his line of questioning any further. “Well, alright, Professor. Get out so I can get a shower. My folks’ll be here before lunch and Mom always checks to make sure I’ve washed behind my ears.”

Nick had no idea if it was a joke or not, but he kind of liked the idea either way, amused to the point that he carried his smile with him all the way back to the front room.

“You’re looking a little better today.” Sam remarked from where he was sitting with sleep mussed hair on the edge of the sofa bed. 

“I’ll be even better when you use those long arms of yours to get me down some aspirin from the top of the fridge.”

He didn’t have to ask twice, Sam was just getting up with this very determined look on his face and moving through the home’s tiny kitchen. He pulled down a shoebox that rattled softly as various pill bottles knocked into each other; all regular and unexciting over the counter types of medications for pain, or allergies, or the flu. Sam dug until he came up with the right bottle and held it out with a little too much eagerness. A puppy doing a trick and waiting to hear ‘good boy’.

Or maybe that was just how Nick’s mind chose to interpret that big goofy smile being thrown his way. 

A mumbled ‘thanks’ was offered in exchange for the pills and Nick dry swallowed down three of them. As tempting as it was to ask Sam to get down the half empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s, it seemed wise to not mix alcohol with meds. Even if he wasn’t planning to drive or operate any heavy machinery today, he’d be meeting the rest of Sam’s family, which was arguably promised to be more difficult. 


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More boys for you. This time with some standing too close and a little hand holding that is totally necessary and no one enjoys it or anything. Nope. Not at all...

There were some legitimate concerns about bringing a strange man home with him. Sam had honestly been anticipating every sort of awful repercussion for introducing Nick to his family. He’d spent most of the train ride (when he wasn’t face first in a book) bracing himself for anything from: his family assuming that he was gay and having to explain that despite Nick being surprisingly charming in his own special way, and no offence meant, but if he  _ were _ into dudes then he was certain that Nick wouldn’t be his type― to being so embarrassed by some sort of nonsense that Nick might instigate that he would be forced to disown himself into a self imposed exile, drop out of school, and start living as a goat in Nepal.

What he hadn’t expected was just how easily Nick would fit in. 

Ellen and Bobby had welcomed the stranger in almost as warmly as they welcomed Sam (though his uncle did not offer the same smack on the back, and his aunt did not crush him into a crippling hug, as Sam was treated to), setting an extra place for him at the table and asking if he wanted coffee or juice with breakfast.

“Jo’s working the opening shift,” Ellen nodded to Sam as she heaped pancakes he hadn’t asked for onto his plate. “But she should be back in a few hours. Honestly, how that girl can get up at three in the morning to make coffee without killing half the customers just for showing up, I’ll never understand. That’s just being young though. You and her were always up at the ass crack of dawn, Sam. We could hear you two downstairs banging away trying to get the milk warmed on the stove without burning this old house down or waking up anyone else. And I’d be rolling over telling this old bag of bones,” she nodded towards Bobby, “that if he didn’t give in and get a microwave that you kids would end up killing us all in our sleep from a fire or a gas leak... Oh, hon’, you want some milk or sugar for that?”

Seeming rather confused that he was suddenly being addressed, Nick looked up from blowing into his mug, wearing a tired smile. “No, ma’am.” And then proceeded to whisper under his breath where he probably assumed that no one could hear him. “I like my coffee bitter, just like I like my men.”

And there was a prime example of the sort of embarrassing thing that was going to lead to Sam having to run away from home. Not that Nick wasn’t allowed to be as weird as he pleased, but most definitely Sam shouldn’t take such joy in it. 

Pointedly, he did his best to ignore Nick who was doing nothing more sinister or distracting than sipping quietly on his coffee with one hand pressed lightly against his side. 

Aunt Ellen rattled on cheerfully, asking roughly a million and two questions between bites of food. How was New York? How were classes? How were his jobs going? How was Madison? And so many more; all thankfully simple enough that Sam was able to string together a few short words in answer to each.

There was a familiar rhythm to the conversation, though it had been too many long months since Sam had been out this way to visit. The woman had spent nearly fifteen years tending the bar that she’d owned with her first husband, and small talk came as easy to her as breathing. It helped that Sam hadn’t been out to visit in almost a year, it meant that they had a lot to catching up to do.

“Come on now, Ellen,” Bobby eventually interrupted. “Let the kid eat. You know Mary’s gonna give him the same run down as soon as she gets in. Don’t make him go through it all twice.”

Sam grinned in silent gratitude. Not that he’d mind all the questions―it was just nice to have an excuse to eat this delicious home cooked meal with a single focus. The food on the train had been really pricey considering the quality, and the day and a half on the bus had been only brief stops at fast food joints. Far too long since he’d been face to face with some quality chow, and he meant to savor it.  

The back door swung open, letting in a gust of winter wind and a cheekily grinning Dean with hair still damp from his morning shower.  It was very possible that he was capable of cooking in his own kitchen, however that in no way deterred him from pouring himself the last of the coffee and looking around expectantly. “So, Samsquach, you leave any pancakes for the rest of us?”

Nick snickered softly into his coffee, repeating the nickname under his breath.

“Boy, you want breakfast? You know how to make it,” Bobby instructed as he got up from the table and collected his and Ellen’s dishes. There was a quiet warmth to his words though, the old man obviously happy to have his kitchen full.

Scoffing with mock outrage, Dean tossed his head to one side. “What, so this lame-o comes to visit for a week and you guys treat it like he’s at a five star bed and breakfast? I work with you,  _ for _ you. Like your own son. My blood sweat and tears are out in that shop, and I’ve got to make my own breakfast? How is this fair?”

Ellen patted the back of the chair that Bobby had just vacated, inviting Dean to sit down and join them. “Dean, we’ve been letting you eat our food for three years now. Let your brother free load for a bit too. There’s plenty to go around.” 

Under the table, and ever so lightly, Nick’s knee crashed into Sam’s. 

He glanced over to the man who had only had tired words and faint smiles since they’d come down to the house. Winking, Nick gave a shallow nod towards the others before getting a wisp of a grin that made his tired eyes bright.

Sam couldn’t help but grin back. 

Today already felt like it was shaping up to be an amazing kind of day. He was back in one of the only two places that had ever felt like home, and it was every kind of good that he’d been missing out in New York.

About half an hour later, and despite his aunt’s protests, Sam was out back, ankle deep in snow, cutting some fresh firewood. He tossed each split log onto the already sizable pile along the side of the house. The labor that used to be considered a punishment to a restless and rowdy teenaged Sam, now felt like a perfect way to settle into his vacation and relax. 

Nick sat on the unsteady pile of uncut logs, watching the work like he’d never in his life seen something even half as strange. 

Scrubbing the back of a wrist over his forehead, Sam grunted when he’d noticed Nick had joined him out into the cold. “You didn’t read your brother’s list, did you? Because it says you can’t do anything that could make you break a sweat. Doubt he was considering chopping wood when he wrote it, but pretty sure he’d say ‘no’.”  

With a look of mild surprised followed by a laugh, Nick asked, “where exactly did I lead you wrong here that you thought I had any intention of helping?” He stretched his legs out, digging tracks in the snow with his heels. 

“You’re just here to watch?”

“I am  _ supervising _ ,” Nick informed as he folded his arms over his chest and picked up a heavy New York accent suddenly. “Hey, yous, keep choppin’. We got eight mo’ orders here to fill before lunch.”

It was so bizarre to hear that for a moment all Sam could do was toss his head back and laugh. He glanced over at the man who wasn’t helping him and started laughing again because Nick just looked so overly pleased with himself.

“I think you liked that more than I did.” Sam accused, shaking his head and adding another gnarled pine log up onto the chopping block.

Nick got a tight lipped smile that made his eyes glint the same cold color as the sky.

For maybe longer than was socially acceptable, Sam stood there dumbly, ax loose in his hand as he smiled back. 

“Get your ass movin’, kid,” Nick said the words through his nose, sounding for all the world like Sam’s boss Reese. That heavy New York accent that he would have sworn was only for movies, up until he’d started working downtown in the chop shop. “We ain’t got all day. You think that wood’s gonna chop itself?”

“Look, I’m doing this for fun, I don’t need your sass.” Sam pointed with the head of the ax at the bossy man who’d started chuckling under his breath.

“This is your idea of fun?”

“Yeah. It is.” Sam took pleasure in the clean, hard work, and he wasn’t about to apologize for it. “You got a problem with that…  _ Daddy _ ?”

Nick took a startled, sharp breath and looked away, smiling down at the snow bank beside him. 

Satisfied that he’d won, Sam resumed his chopping. The steady, rhythmic  _ thwack thwack _ filling the yard. There was a silent goal to get through the snow dusted spill of wood that had made its way out from under the overhang of the house. It would clean up this corner of the yard, which inevitably at some point this week either he or his brother were going to be told to go out and do, so really it was all preemptive measures while he still had the energy and motivation to do it. 

He paid no mind to what Nick was doing perched over there on his woodpile, though the quiet company was appreciated. This was how he and Dean had grown up; existing in close proximity, hardly ever outside of direct line of sight, but not necessarily needing to fill that empty space with words. Mind you, Dean loved to explain things, love to educate his baby brother on how the big, wide world worked― a very specific closeness that still let them embrace those comfortable silences like a third sibling. 

It was only too easy to take for granted how Nick slid into the same steps, like he’d known this dance all along. A familiar presence lurking on the edge of Sam’s periferal. 

Nearly halfway to his axing goal, the small of his back pooling sweat under his heavy flannel, Sam was startled to notice that the other man was trying to get his attention. “Y-yeah?” He asked a little sheepishly, because judging by Nick’s frown this wasn’t the first time he’d said Sam’s name. 

“I was asking what phone carrier you use?”

Unsure, Sam answered, taking a moment to lean the ax head against the chopping block and catch his breath. 

“Android or Apple?” Nick glanced down to his own phone, using one thumb to scroll idly. 

“What?”

“What type of phone do you want?” With something halfway between amusement and annoyance, Nick heavily enunciated each word.

It took Sam two and a half pauses, and a rapid search of their surroundings to sputter, “ _ What _ ?”

“You still don’t have a phone. I’m fixing that. What type do you want?”

“Nick, you don’t need to―”

“Android it is,” he announced cheerily. “I hear that the touch screens on Apples don’t work when your hands get too cold, and let’s face it, you’re going to be in a state of ‘too damn cold’ for the next few months.”

“I’ll get my own.” Stubbornly, Sam crushed down the giddy feeling that fluttered unexpectedly inside of him. “I’ve got the money that you gave me, and―”

“Too late. Already ordered. It should be here tomorrow.”

With his free hand, Sam wiped sweat from his forehead and pushed his hair back. “First off, thank you, but stop it. Second, all the mail carrier are backlogged. It’s five days until Christmas, nothing that you ordered today is going to get anywhere before New Years.” Sam should know. He’d sent his holiday gifts out a little too late the year before and his family didn’t received any of their packages until the second week of January.   

“It’ll be here tomorrow.” He repeated with this beautifully unapologetic curve of a smile. “You’re on your own getting a new SIM card for it, but… yeah. And you’re welcome.”

Sam almost said ‘thank you’ again out of reflex. “I, uh, I’m not really used to people buying me things. It’s weird.” He tried to think of the gentlest way to put words to what he was feeling. “Not that I don’t appreciate it. It’s just, you don’t have to and…”

“And it makes you a bit uncomfortable?”

Relieved that the other man got it, Sam sagged a little, smiling. “Yeah.” 

“Too bad. It’s Christmas.” Nick tucked his phone away and hugged himself against the cold, grinning. “Society says I’m allowed to, and it’s sort of expected. I’d actually be a  _ bad _ friend if I didn’t get you something. I could never live with myself.”

“I haven’t even known you a week, Luci.” Sam fought back that same giddy feeling from before. That wash of unexpected joy that just went along with acquiring a new friend who was still a surprise at each corner. “You won’t get dinged any friend points.”

“It’s just a phone, Sam.”

A new phone should never be flaunted around so casually. Even a simple mid ranged one would be a few hundred dollars that Sam really didn’t have to spare. Not that he hadn’t suddenly come into a bit of money a few nights back, it was just that that money had already been allocated towards tuition and rent and he really didn’t couldn’t spend it on ‘fun’ things like a phone without feeling guilty for it.  Letting someone else buy it for him didn’t ease any of that guilt. 

“Pout all you want. It’s done.” Nick was a sypatheticless son of a bitch and it was kind of beautiful that way. “ _ Joyeux Noel, moi petit chou _ .”  

Despite the sudden French being thrown at him, Sam was fairly certain that he got the gist of it. He could only shake his head and heft the ax once more. Pausing before he got back to work, he felt a need to point out, “You look cold.”

Nick looked down at himself, where his arms were folded tightly around his ribs, and how he’d tucked his long legs up close instead of letting them sprawl like they’d been when he’d first come to sit down. “Yeah… you gonna offer me your coat like a gentleman?”

“No.” Sam laughed. “I was going to tell you to go back inside and keep warm.”

“You can’t tell me what to do though,” he stuck out his tongue and literally dug his heels in, showing no intention of having good sense. 

“I can.” Not wanting to join in the childishness, Sam was only too happy to remind, “I’ve got a written note from your doctor telling me that I’m the boss and you have to do what I say.”

One more time, Nick did that thing where he half turned away, smiling at the ground as he collected himself. “You really going to send me in there, all defenceless and unarmed against your family?”

“First off, I’m willing to bet that you’re not  _ ‘unarmed’, _ ” which Sam wasn’t about ready to go into how not ok he still was with that fact. “Second, they won't bite. You’ll be fine.”

“Not much of a people person,” Nick confessed, looking back at the house like it was a threat, before mumbling. “But I might make an exception for that brother of yours.”   

And Sam wasn’t sure if the other man just sucked at whispering or if he was joking, but he really hoped it was the latter.  

“I, uh… didn’t know he was your type?” 

“He’s not.” Nick turned back, giving Sam a very confused look. “That’s why I only said I  _ might _ make an exception.” 

Kind of done with this discussion because it made him uncomfortable, Sam kicked the unchopped log off the block and rolled it back into the pile. “Yeah, well I wouldn’t tell him that.” 

“Really? So a few days ago you’re fine lying to everyone and holding my hand, and today you’re going to look at me like I’m weird and tell me I’m not allowed to call your brother pretty?”

“Not to his face, no.”

Nick offered with some hesitancy, “Will it make you feel any better if I tell you you’re pretty too?” 

Sam took a turn smiling awkwardly at the ground as he collected himself and tried to think of an answer that wouldn’t somehow be encouraging to this man. “Let’s go inside, ok? I think the cold is making you loopy.”

“Or we could blame the pain killers?”

“They were regular strength Tylenol, you wimp.” Sam came over and offered a helping hand up. “For your sake, let’s just say it’s the cold.” Nick’s hand was unsettlingly frosty as Sam hauled the older man up to his feet. “Hey,” all joking aside, “you alright?”

“Always.” He scoffed and squared off his shoulders as if he took great offence to the question. “I exist in a constant state of alright.”

Sam had heard those words before and he continued to have strong doubts. “Come on,” he grunted and started gently tugging Nick back towards the house. “Bobby’s got this cozy old man chair that he never let us sit in when we were kids, however I bet he’d let a half frozen stabbing  victim take a ride in it.”

Dragging his feet and whining pitifully, “Old man chair? I’m hurt, not retired.”

“No one’s saying you can’t be hurt  _ and _ old.” Sam grinned and resisted the urge to call the other man ‘Daddy’, even though the opportunity was obvious. Too obvious, and he chose not to go for the cheap shot. “Comfy chair will do you some good. Maybe we can get you some tea and―”

“ _ Tea _ ?”   

“Tea was on the approved list of drinks by your doctor.” There was no such list.

“You’re really taking Cassy’s orders to heart, aren’t you?”

“He scares me and I don’t want to make him mad,” Sam half lied. Ever since he’d seen the back room of that bakery, he’d decided that it might be wise to be at least slightly cautious of Nick’s family. Castiel hadn’t seemed like the type to carry a gun, but he’d made it very clear to Sam that he was to take the utmost care of Nick, who was too damn stupid and stubborn to be careful, or to take care of himself, or to ask for help, or to not injure himself any worse. The little doctor had made Sam swear to bring Nick back to New York in better condition that he’d left, and part of Sam feared the repercussions if he failed.  

“It  _ is  _ possible to keep an eye on me without holding my hand like I’m five.” 

Maybe. 

Maybe it was, but Sam enjoyed dragging the older man around, if only for those suffering looks being thrown his way. 

And because the hand holding was only to be as annoying as possible, Sam had no problem dropping that clammy, cold hand the moment that he saw one of his family members approaching. If it had been almost anyone other than Jo, he would have considered holding on just a little longer, except that Jo was known to jump to conclusions. Conclusions about Nick were not something that Sam wanted to deal with today. 

With an excited, “Sam!” Jo ran to them (really more towards her cousin with Nick sort of caught in the crossfire), her sneakers skidding down the hall. She caught him in a tight hug, her face smashing into the center of Sam’s chest. “Hey, you. Sorry I couldn’t come with Dean this morning to pick you up, I had work.”

Aunt Ellen’s first husband had been hunting buddies with John, so Sam had known Jo since before either of them had even been able to talk in full sentences. There were pictures of the two of them, both toddlers with wild hair and not enough teeth, naked, playing in mud puddles during a family camping trip. The photos had long ago been destroyed, but would live forever in Sam’s embarrassed memories. Even if Ellen had married Bobby (another one of John’s hunting buddies, which in Sam’s opinion made the whole thing borderline awkward) and made Jo his semi-official cousin, she’d always been more like a little sister.  

Sam squeezed Jo, lifting her up off her feet and spinning her around twice before kissing the top of her head. “How was work?”

“Nothin’ special.”  She grinned up at him. “How was the trip out here?”

“Eh?” Sam shrugged and set Jo down. “Long and boring. Hey, um, this is my friend Nick. Nick, this is my cousin Jo.”

Nick smiled politely, but Jo’s friendly smile quickly turned to confusion. She cocked her head, long blond ponytail swishing behind her.  

“It’s nice to meet you, cousin Jo,” Nick greeted with no sign of his usual smarm. It was like a business-casual version of the man, and he slipped into it as easily as some people slip into new shirts.

And Jo was thinking. She was thinking hard if the pinched look between her eyes was any indication. “Nick… like as in  _ Nicholas…”  _ A slow grin started as if every answer suddenly came to her.  __ “Nicholas  _ Novak _ ? Oh my god. You look just like your picture in the back of your books.”

Over Jo’s head, Nick gave Sam half a second’s worth of a very significant look before smiling back at the wide eyed woman facing him. “Yeah… that kind of Nick. Hi.”

“Hi.” She bounced a little, almost too excited, before she reigned herself in and repeated, “hi. You’re a friend of Sam’s? Sam,” she turned back to the other man almost like an accusation, “you know Nicholas- _ fucking _ -Novak and you didn’t tell me?”

“I didn’t know he was a big deal?” Sam was having a very hard time not laughing at the consternated look on his friend’s face as soon as Jo’s gaze was off him. 

“Of course it’s a big deal.” Jo hissed. “It’s like bringing Stephen King home for Christmas, if Stephen King was hot.” She lightly slapped him in the chest before turning back to Nick. “I love your books.”

“Thank you?” An easy chuckle made the words come out a little too soft as Nick seemed to slowly be leaning away from overly polite, towards quietly amused. 

Beaming, Joe blurted, “My favorite was Hush, I loved the changeling, oh, oh, and the pain eater! They were both super disturbing and all the right kinds of creepy, and I had legit nightmares after reading that chapter when June meets Eli for the first time, and he’s talking, and blood is just falling from his mouth, and the room full of skulls. Ugh, it was so perfect!”

Cliff Notes that were lost on Sam, because he’d only just barely started that particular book during the last few hours of the bus ride. It might have all been spoilers, if he wasn’t so damn confused at more than half of what he’d just heard.

With a charming smile Nick lower his eyes and asked,  “Really? That was my favorite part too.” 

Jo grinned. “They’re all amazing, though. My aunt Mary introduced me to your books back when I was in high school and I’ve shared them with all my friends. Even Dean reads them.” 

And Sam remembered a little too late that his mother had a love of horror novels and maybe that might have been something to consider before bringing Nick along to meet his family. Even as just a possible heads up to the man who was taking this all rather well.

“Mary, as in Sam’s  _ mom _ ?” Nick asked, peering over Jo’s head and leveling the other man with a very confused look.

Jo didn’t seem to notice, she was too busy trying to play it cool while asking a little too eagerly, “would… would you mind signing one of my books, the newest one? I’ve got a copy upstairs.”

“I’d be happy to,” Nick hardly got out before Jo grinned and ran off, presumably to go and fetch a book. 

“I’m sorry?” Sam didn’t know what else to say as the quiet of the hallway settled around them. It just sort of felt like there needed to be some kind of apology for Jo’s overly excited word vomit. “She’s not usually like that.” 

“No apology needed.  Apparently I’m hotter than Stephen King. And I mean, it’s not a high bar to pass, but it’s kind of flattering to hear, especially when I’m still looking like I recently got my ass handed to me.”

Sam laughed. 

Other than the scab on his lower lip, and the careful way he held himself, Nick actually seemed fine. Or, at least as fine as he’d been the night they’d met. It was possible that his own hotness bar had never been set all that high.

“Hey,” Nick grinned as an idea seemed to occur to him. “You think your mom thinks I’m hot, too?”

Sam stopped laughing.

“Well, your little cousin’s a bit young for me, but sexy mom? I’m definitely into it.”

“She’s very married to my dad.” Narrowing his eyes, Sam did his best to let the other man know that he didn’t like this line of joking. “ _ Happily _ married to my dad.”

The grin that Nick wore didn’t waiver.

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Just don’t.” Sam warned. 

“Oh come on, like you didn’t assess my family when you met them.”

“ _ Assess _ ?”

“For ... _ kissability _ .” The odd pause before the word made it sound like a cop out, or at least a lot more tactful way to say what he he actually meant.

Either way, Sam certainly had done nothing of the sort. “You know what? You can go sit back outside in the snow. I don’t care what Castiel said about me taking care of you. The cold might do you some good.”

It was apparent from the self satisfied glint in those pale eyes of his, that Nick was thoroughly enjoying the teasing. “We both come from pools of damn fine genetics. There’s no shame in admitting it, Samsquach.”

Right in that moment, Sam couldn’t be sure if he was more annoyed with Nick for saying it, or in Dean for supplying that awful nickname during breakfast.

“So? If you had to pick, who’d it be?” The older man nudged a shoulder into Sam’s, with a cheeky grin and no sign of letting it drop. “I promise I won’t tell anyone. It’ll be a little secret just between us two.” 

Nick winked.

Sam almost laughed.

It was very nearly a mess.

Choking down a smile, Sam sighed. “Sometimes,” he began wistfully, “I think back to that one time you got shanked in that dark alley, and I wonder how different my life would be now if I just left you there. How much nicer things would be for me...”

With a chuckle that was more of a weeze, Nick had to turn away, his shoulders shaking happily.

There wasn’t much more room to expand on the harassment as Jo came back down stairs, book and pen in hand. While she lightly fawned over Nick, and the older man talked with her and actually looked like a professional adult for once, Sam made himself scarce. This whole vacation was going to be longer than a week, and every moment didn’t have to be spent keeping an eye on his guest. With a light pat to his friend’s shoulder, and a nod to his cousin, Sam went to go clean up. 

By the time he’d scrubbed tree sap from his hands, and rinsed the sweat from his face, he could hear the resonant rumble of John’s voice coming through the walls. Dean and Dad were happily yelling at each other; the words intelligible, but the excited emotions coming through loud and clear. 

Sam found Nick lurking back near the stairs like a kid who had been dragged along to a party that they’d never wanted to go to in the first place, and further down the hall, making far too much noise, was the rest of Sam’s family. Brother, aunt, uncle, and parents standing around, laughing and hugging, letting the front door stand wide open and forgotten. Even Jo had joined, leaning on her mom and talking animatedly to Mary. 

With an intent to be a little reassuring, Sam put a hand on middle of Nick’s back as he came up behind him. The other man smothered a strange noise as he half turned, eyes a touch too wide. 

“Make some damn noise when you walk,” he whispered and relaxed, almost leaning into Sam. “So, is this everyone?” 

“Yeah.” No one else had noticed Sam just yet, too caught up in their greetings and laughing mundane questions about how the drive up from Kansas had been, how’s the car doing, is it too soon for lunch, and so many things that were lost as people talked over one another. And for just a bit, Sam was more than content to simply stand back and admire the collection of his favorite people all in one place.

With an appreciative noise, Nick felt whispered “Hot damn. Your mother is really―”

“I will actually hurt you if you try and finish that.” Sam warned through his teeth. “Punch you. Right in the stitches.”

Nick chuckled, leaning more into Sam’s arm that was still half around him. It wasn’t really any closer than they’d spent the last three days while they’d been mushed together on the train and bus―only now the proximity wasn’t mandatory. And while Nick looked perfectly at ease with the casual touch, it created this awkwardly too ... _ something _ feeling in Sam that he didn’t quite understand, or want to understand. 

The younger man pulled back, pulled away, and with a friendly warning of, “You behave yourself,” he went to go say hello to his parents.

Quiet as he could, Sam snuck up on his mom, hugging her from behind, relishing in the startled, bird like laugh that rapidly devolved into content motherly sounds. She turned and hugged him back, reaching up to cup his face. Mary had a beautiful laugh, even if it made the crows feet at the corners of her eyes a little sharp. In contrast, her wide grin still made her look so young, despite the littlest touch of gray hiding in her soft blonde hair.   

“I swear you’re taller every time I see you.” She looked so proud of him, even as she tutted and tucked his hair behind his ears, fussing over him. “Sam! Your hair. When was the last time you got a trim?”

Sheepishly, he answered, “last Christmas break when you decided it was getting too long?”

Mary laughed again, pulling him down low enough that she could kiss his cheek.

Greeting John wasn’t necessarily less  _ warm _ though it was slightly more restrained and there was considerably less touching involved. Dad reached over and squeezed Sam’s shoulder, smiling and saying, “good to see you… you’re looking a little thin. You remembering to eat at school?”

Which opened the door for Aunt Ellen to say that she’d noticed the same thing, and then Mom started fussing twice as bad as before, and Sam had no other option but to gesture down the hall to where he could still see Nick trying to hide.

“Get over here,” Sam was desperate for the distraction. “Mom, Dad, this is my friend Nick. He needed somewhere to stay over the holiday so I brought him along.” Close enough to the truth that he didn’t have to feel bad about it.

It had been almost a week since Nick had planted himself firmly at the back of Sam’s bar and interjected himself into Sam’s life. And a week wasn’t even half enough time to really get to know someone, not enough to read body language, or half aborted expressions that were too hastily covered up behind practiced smiles and polite words.  

And Nick was  _ so  _ polite. So unexpectedly  _ normal, _ as he shook hands with John and Mary.

It almost made Sam forget how nervous he’d been about this weirdo coming home with him. He very nearly felt guilty for doubting Nick’s ability to blend in with normal humans, and for bristling at the teasing earlier―expect for that Sam saw the way that the man spared the smallest wink towards Jo and the young woman nodded subtly, before making a zipping motion over her lips.

A silent little collusion between them.

The smallest exchange that instantly drew so much suspicion from Sam. He’d missed something earlier when he’d left the two of them alone to talk. Though it seemed nothing more sinister than that when Nick introduced himself as an English teacher, Jo pointedly didn’t make any additions to the claim.  

Sam could live with this. If there was no spark of recognition in Mary’s eyes when she stood face to face with Nick, it only meant that she didn’t study book jackets as closely as other members of her family. So, for now, Nick could just blend into the background as nothing more important than Sam’s friend.     

Simply being Nobody Important for a week was such a little thing that Sam would have felt like an ass for denying the silent request. 

“Come on, Nick.” Sam was in a benevolent mood. “Help me get their bags from the car.” He didn’t need the help, and even if he did, the other man was physically incapable of carrying anything. It was just an easy out from greetings that had the potential to turn awkward any moment. 

With a soft, “It’s nice to meet you both,” Nick extracted himself from the Winchester/Singer family clump and followed Sam out the still open door.  

“You still alright?” Sam urged as soon as they’d cleared the porch, making a beeline to John’s black truck that had been parked to one side of the long driveway. 

“Always.”

Each time Sam heard the proclamation he believed it a little less. 

“Look, it’s sweet that you keep checking in, even though you’re probably only doing it because Cassy made you promise that you’d report back regularly.” Nick seemed to be able to read each little frown and shrug from the younger man. “I’m  _ fine _ . It was just a few stitches. You don’t have to keep asking me every few minutes.”

“I meant more with the meeting a bunch of people, and Jo getting a little fangirly with you. My family’s not as intense as a black tie dinner with news coverage and fifteen different forks to choose from, but it’s still a bit overwhelming… even for me.” Sam lifted the hard cover on the truck bed and pulled out three suitcases of varying sizes, juggling them with a bit of effort. It took him a moment to realise he wasn’t getting an answer, and when he looked back at Nick he sort of forgot what he’d even asked to begin with. 

The older man had gone still as a deer, eyes just as wide as if it were a speeding car bearing down on him instead of a relatively harmless young man.  

“Um…” Sam adjusted his load of baggage and looked around the drive for possible danger or concerns. “Are you sensing a disturbance in the force or something? Should I be worried?”

“You are actually, honestly worried about  _ me _ ?” Nick couldn’t seem to make any sense of his own words. “It’s got nothing to do with possible little brother threats, or the hole in my side. You’re actually worried if I’m  _ feeling  _ ok?

“Yes?”

“Why in god’s name?”

Sam almost made some tongue in cheek comment, but he realised that there was some real confusion in Nick over the simple concern being directed at him. 

He didn’t have a good explanation.

And the more he thought about it the more he came to realise that he didn’t have an answer beyond ‘ _ because I like you _ ’ and for whatever reason he wasn’t willing to say something so stupid outloud. 

“I’m allowed to worry. We’re friends. Friends worry.” Sam stumbled over the words like a drunk, before elbowing the other man and walking back towards the house. The tension he hadn’t realised he carried easing from his shoulders when he heard the soft  _ crunch crunch _ of footsteps following him.  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> man, it's only been what, 3 days since I updated? And I'm just about out of back logged chapters, but I've been super happy writing these last few and I kind of can't keep from getting excited about sharing them with you guys.   
> It's like... I want to be strong and space them out so there's not a big noticeable difference when I'm out of backlogged chapters and you're just going to start get them whenever I finish them... but... I have no chill and there are now boy making bad choices :3   
> some of you have noticed the updated tags that showed up a few updates back, which are referring to things that will happen in the next chapter :D and I'm not even sorry, because, yeah. yeah all the bad choices. My absolute favorite thing to write is bad choices.   
> And if it's any consolation (and no spoilers intended), yes, this whole thing will eventually end with Luci and Sam and all good stuff that we hope for in our rom/coms, but for now?   
> For now I get to set the stage for some frustrating manDRAMA™ and it's delicious

Never in his life had Nick considered that he would willingly, if not almost eagerly, agree to sit and watch another man getting a haircut. Though, he’d never considered that he’d ever meet anyone as close to an adorable human-puppy hybrid as Sam Winchester. The kid was far too eager to be sitting on a chair in the middle of a kitchen, a bed sheet draped around his shoulders, while his mom started to patiently try and tame the glorious mane.

“Just shave it all off,” Dean cheered from down the hall.

Silently, Sam glared off in the direction that the instructions had come from―but he stayed still in his oddly trusting sort of way.

Mary laughed softly and carefully trimmed just the smallest bit from her youngest son’s hair.

Relaxing a touch, Nick realized he was relieved that a haircut didn’t actually mean that Sam would be losing any of that very soft looking mess of hair. Not that he was invested or anything.

But that hair. 

It would be a shame to watch it go before he’d ever had a chance to run his hands through it. Thoughts like that were unwelcome, and Nick tugged out his phone as a distraction. 

There was a text from a friend back home, casual sort of check in to how he was doing.

There were two texts from his brother, and Nick couldn’t help from grinning as he read.

**Gabe:** Went by the apartment this morning to see your dumb face and you and your stuff are gone. Coward

**Gabe:** Backing out of the bet and running home means that I won and I want my money bitch

He started to piece together some kind of response that would be really witty and smart and funny, but Mary started talking as she worked and that was far more interesting. 

“So… how’s Madison?”

Somehow, Sam managed to press a full body’s worth of awkward shrug into a single facial expression. “She’s fine. Her classes are going alright.”

Mary looked up from her work just long enough to send a questioning glance towards Nick, as if she expected him to back up the younger man, or add something.

Nick could only shrug. He had zero idea who Madison could be, so he had zero idea how she was doing. A irking sort of something curled in him though at the idea that there was a woman in Sam’s life that he hadn’t been told about. The crash course ‘getting to know you’ night drive that they’d shared should have covered all current and important relationships with females. 

“You going to bring her home for summer break?” Mary looked happy as her scissors  _ snip-snipped _ . 

“No, uh…”

“Your dad and I are happy to help you pay for a plane ticket for her―”

“We broke up almost a year ago.” Sam wasn’t looking at the other people in the room, examining his feet while he spoke very matter of factly, very almost happy sounding. Either he was good at faking it, or he was actually kind of happy about this break up. “We’re still friends... and she’s living with her girlfriend now. They’re doing alright.”

“Oh.” Mary lowered her scissors for a beat before nodding and going back to her careful trimming. “Well, good for her, figuring herself out,” and she dusted some hair off Sam’s shoulders before kissing the top of his head as if he were five and in need of comfort. “And good that you two could stay friends.”

“ _ Mom… _ ” Sam kept on not looking at anyone, and Nick realised that this all was information that Sam hadn’t wanted to share. Possibly for the same reasons that Nick hadn’t shared his own sworded past relationships. Unless alcohol was involved as sort of a social primer, you just don’t bring up that one time that someone left you for someone better. 

Mary kept on trimming, seeming to be making very little to no difference in Sam’s hair at this point, but still enjoying the action. “As your Mom, I’m not going to apologize for making it awkward by asking about your girlfriend that you never told me you stopped dating. God knows I’m still paying you back for all those years of backlogged embarrassment you’ve given me… like when you used to try and strip naked at church because you were tired and couldn’t take a nap with your clothes on. Or that time after your great Aunt Edith’s funeral where you kept telling every old person that you saw that they were going to die soon.”

Sam’s ears had started to turn red and he looked halfway between laughing, or trying to hide.

“Or when you were about three and addicted to blueberries for a summer but had a problem with the letter L, and you’d yell ‘yay boobies’ at the grocery store.”

Nick was so happy that he was here for this. 

“But I’ll change the subject.” Mary was a gift. “So… Nick, I’m just guessing that you aren’t one of Sam’s teachers. Tell me how’d you boys meet?”

Looking up from the linoleum for the first time since he sat down, Sam shot a panicked look towards Nick. They’d never really settled on what the ‘truth’ was going to be without it just sounding kind of crazy, or like platonic friendship-prostitution.

“I came into the bar Sam works at a while back.” Nick played with his phone, thinking about the best way to say things that wouldn’t make it weird or too much of a lie. “We got into a fist fight with some hooligans one night, and he saved my life.”

Startled by the near lie, Sam frowned.

In contrast, Mary looked slightly stunned by the casual confession of heroics. 

Sam recovered first, smiling slightly as he pointed out, “you were only lightly stabbed. I just took you to get stitches. It’s not that big of a deal.”

“I suck at clotting. You know I’ve got blood thinner than football stadium beer.” Nick didn’t feel like letting Sam back out of this. The young man got to be a hero in this story whether he liked it or not. “I could have bled to death. But you got me patched up, and then took care of me afterwards. I’ve been following him around like a puppy since then,” he told Mary with a grin.

She looked to be lost as to which boy she wanted to start lecturing first and it tickled Nick to be included in that worried mother stare down. Finally she settled on the closest man. “Sam. This is the kind of thing that you call home about.”

“Oh, he’s fine. And you wouldn't have know who he was anyways. You would have just worried extra.” Sam sighed through his nose, rolling his eyes to look up at his mom. “It’s not that big of a deal. Nick’s just the kind of guy who goes around looking for fights and I’m the kind of guy who’s too worried about what might happen to him if I left him back in New York without supervision.”

“I’d like to point out,” Nick came to his own defense, “that  _ you _ were the one to throw the first punch that night.”

“He had it coming.” Sam’s words sounded grumpy through his smile. 

Mary set aside her scissors and tucked her son’s hair behind his ears. “You’re not making me feel any better about you being out in New York. I wish you’d consider transferring to a college back in Kansas, or at least not punching street thugs who are carrying knives.” 

“I’ll make sure to get them to put their knives down first next time.” Sam grinned so very charmingly and earned himself a light smack on the shoulder from his mother. 

The domestic bliss of it all warmed Nick down in the deep and usually cold parts of his chest. It’s not that his own family wasn’t close. Some might even say that the Novaks could be a little  _ too _ close at times. But Nick couldn’t remember his mother biological mother beyond flickers of soft skin that smelled of lavender soap and bedtime lullabies that, though not always sung in tune, were always beautiful. He liked to think that if she hadn’t died from complications during child birth, that there might have been afternoons laughing in the kitchen and supportive criticism and so much love. 

He found himself texting back his brother, a melancholy mood underlying the carefully neutral smile that he wore out of habit. 

**I didn’t go home. I’m in SD with my Sam and his family** Nick typed out, knowing that Gabriel wasn’t likely to believe the claim. 

Sure enough, less than a minute later a text bounced back with two simple words:

**Gabe:** Bull shit

Grunting softly, Nick turned in his chair, mindful of the way that the movement pulled the stitches in his side. He angled his phone, turning on the front facing camera and doing his best to capture the haircut and at least half of his own face in the picture as proof. Mary seemed oblivious and Sam had one eye mostly closed, nose wrinkled over a confused half smile. Nick sent the picture and settle back in, pressing a hand to slight throb over his hip that had been pretty persistent since lunchtime when the regular strength pain killers had worn off. 

“You just wanting to document this moment for posterity's sake?” Sam wanted to know.

Nick tossed his phone gently onto the tabletop and focused on things that were good and not the pain he was feeling rather acutely. “Gabriel didn’t believe that I hadn’t just gone back home. And seeing as he’s at least eighty percent of the reason that I’m here in the first place, a little proof felt necessary.” With a smile and a tilt of his head he explained to Mary’s questioning glance, “One of my brothers. Don’t get me wrong. I love him, but he’s exhausting to be around.”

The woman nodded sagely, which meant that she too must have some family like Gabe. Someone who you could physically feel them wearing you down with their every word and action. That simple look of sympathy turned back to the same one of parental concern that she’d had in response to the knife fight story. “Are you alright there? You keep touching your side.”

Is this what having a proper mom was like?

Eagle eyes that weren't there to find fault, but to soften with unearned worry.

“Yeah. No. Just still recovering from the gentle stabbing a few nights ago. I’m fine.”

Sam looked up at his mother, shaking his head. “He’s not. I’ve got a whole list of things from his doctor that he’s not allowed to do. And he’s as bad as Dean when he’s hurt. I had to promise to keep an eye on him so he doesn’t pull his stitches and die, or something.” Words that were said in near joking fashion were actually very seriously accurate.

“A  _ few nights ago _ ?” Mary looked in no mood to deal with this nonsense, she took Sam by the shoulder and gave him a gentle shake. “You boys aren’t planning to take taking him fishing with you in the morning, are you?”

Nick’s spine straightened. “Fishing?”

“They all go ice fishing for a few days at the cabin up north.” Mary made a face. “Drinking whisky and sitting out on the ice from sunup to sundown.”

That sounded literally awful. Like a punishment. Nick would rather spend a day trapped in an elevator with Michael, and his daughters, and a badger.

Beneath the sheet draped over his shoulders, Sam’s hands flapped in something like defense. “I mean… no. No. The doctor might try and kill me if he finds out I brought Nick out to the cabin to sleep on the floor in the cold.” He was great at talking up the glamor of it all. “I hadn’t really thought about it. I guess I’ll just stay here with him.”

And Nick appreciated that there was no actual consideration of dragging him out into the wilderness to stare at a hole in the ice for days. 

It was a simple thing, but sometimes simple things meant an awful lot.

Nick already liked Sam far more than he should, and this wasn’t helping matters.

“Look, we just spent two days crammed into public transit, and if spending two more in a little wooden box on a lake is your thing? Go for it.” Nick tried to slouch and look as casual and comfortable as possible so as to not arouse any extra concern. “I’m more than happy to stay right here, pretending that there’s not a hole in my side, stretching my legs…” he couldn’t help but grin at Mary (who was smiling so sweetly at him), “and enjoying the scenery.”

“By  _ ‘scenery’  _ you better mean the trees.” Sam warned, following the smiles being exchanged on either side of him. 

“I do love me some snow flocked trees,” Nick assured with the smallest wink. “And whatever other lovely sights this state has to offer me.” It was all teasing, he’d never intentionally, or seriously, flirt with a married woman. However, the consternated look on Sam’s face was more than worth the little lie. 

“I’ll stay here,” the young man said a little more firmly than necessary.

“Sammy,” Mary dusted all lose hair from her son’s shoulders before whisking away the sheet. “If I kept three Winchester men alive for nearly thirty years, despite your best efforts, I think I can handle one little English teacher for two days. Go fishing. You love fishing with your brother.”

There looked like there was a lot of protest and argument in Sam as he rubbed at the back of his neck, all kinds of mistrust directed towards the other man sitting so very innocently at the table. Finally he said, “Nick, would you mind showing her your stitches?”

The happy went right the hell out of Nick. 

To be fair, the single time he’d been partially shirtless in front of Sam, he hadn’t really gone into great detail on how uncomfortable he was with the situation. He’d been too busy bleeding to explain that his body from the neck down wasn’t something that he readily shared with strangers. 

“Please? I knew what I was agreeing to when Cassy made me pinky promise to keep an eye on you. I just want Mom to get an idea of the level of reckless ‘oh god, are you sure you’re going to be ok’ that she’s volunteering to take care of.”

“He can’t be any worse than Dean. You were too young to remember when your brother decided to try to use the house’s roof as a ramp for his bike and jump over John’s car. And you seem like you’re trying to pretend that you never miss judged jumping out of that tire swing into the river and hit the gravel ass first. I’ve  _ seen  _ stitches.” Mary might have been coming to Nick’s defense. It was hard to tell. 

And really, it sounded more like a challenge. 

Arching back to put himself on display, Nick lifted his shirt with one hand and peeled away the tape and gauze covering his little row of stitches with the other. It wasn’t much more than a few inches of skin. Nick’s scars were not evenly distributed though, and with that little peep show he offered came a glimpse of more than a little bit of the old damage he’d taken during his youth.

A few inches was more than enough for Mary’s confidant Mom-expression to crumble. 

Satisfied that he’d been able to prove himself more of a hot mess than either of her sons, Nick carefully smoothed his gauze back into place and settled his shirt. He took pride in the few things that he excelled in, even if one of those things was merely managing to stay alive despite years of dumbassery. 

“Oh, sweetheart,” Mary shook off her small shock, slipping so easily back into Mom-mode. “You will stay right here with us. No ice. No fishing. And have you considered a safer job than teaching… like maybe bear wrestling?”

“Teaching is my  _ ‘safer’ _ job. And I’d like it on record that young me won more fights than he lost.” Nowadays Nick tended to do his best to keep his fists to himself. He’d grown out of practice and he sort of liked it that way. 

Sam looked almost satisfied that Mary seemed to have understood the gravity of her babysitting offer. He also managed to look a little sceptical at Nick’s claims of victory. “You don’t mind me dragging you all the way out here and then abandoning you for a few days?”

“It’s few stitches.” Nick was beginning to suspect that Castiel might have exaggerated the seriousness of the injury while Nick had been too unconscious to defend himself. “I think I can manage some quiet country living, even without proper Sam-supervision.” 

Part of him suspected that Sam might have requested Nick’s care instructions to get passed off to Mary if only there wern’t pornagraphic stick figures on the back. The kid took his babysitting duties a bit too seriously. Some place quiet, and deep down inside, Nick felt tight and confused that the kid would put forth so much effort just to worry. Confused at the why Sam bothered, not at the why it hobbled Nick in that particular way that it did. 

Simply put, Sam was a good person.

And Nick was getting far too attached. 

He’d have to be a lot stronger than he pretended to be to not bask in all that warmth, though.

On the table, the phone chimed softly. No doubt more texts from Gabe, wanting to know just how badly he was going to lose this bet and his money. 

Sooner, rather than later, Nick was going to have to figure out how to come clean about the whole stupid thing to Sam. The longer he put it off the more they moved away from the possibility to laugh about this and make up a creative lie together―and the closer they got to backing Nick into a corner made of half lies and apologize that might not be enough.   

**.:.**

The lunatic menfolk left for the ice before dawn. Nick stirring awake to the way that someone was hissing Sam’s name. The young man was a wall of warmth against his back and it was only when Sam started grumbling and crawling off the couch-bed did Nick realise that part of the warmth leaving him had been from the heavy arm curled over his chest. 

Groggy, in the dark, Nick put a hand up to that lingering bit of heat where fingers had been notched along his collarbone. His sleep addled brain told him he’d imagined it. Such a small and short lived moment could only have been the tail end of some weird dream.

And he’d have been more than willing to just go along with the logic in that, falling easily back to sleep with the whole mattress all to himself…

Except there was still whispering. Words on the wrong side of quiet catching at his brain and making him doubt his own comforting explanations.

“Don’t start.”

“Sorry to break up the spooning, man.”

“I said don’t, Dean.”

“I mean, I’m still getting a pot of coffee ready for the drive up, if you wanna’ just crawl back in bed for a bit and―”

“You’re not going to just let this go. Are you?”

“Come on. At least give him a kiss goodbye, you heartless son of a bitch.” Dean was laughing with these stifled little noises through his nose. 

Without opening his eyes, Nick could only lay there beneath the heavy flannel blankets and listen to a scuffle that knocked some furniture around. The playful fight masking some good natured laughter and some rough words. 

It wasn’t until long after the rumble of a car leaving the driveway had faded that Nick was able to find his way back to sleep. And by daylight the whole incident had been buried down deep into the forgetful parts of his mind to quietly be forgotten.

The better part of two days wasn’t long to sit around in a warm and welcoming home. Breathing crisp, clean, winter air and eating all kinds of hearty home cooked meals.

For the men sitting out somewhere on a frozen lake collecting stinking fish, the time might have moved a little differently.

Nick wouldn’t know about that.

All he knew was that he enjoyed that lazy day and a half spent with the female side of Sam’s family. Technically, his solitary night was spent alone; sleeping back in Dean’s weird Mother-in-Law type apartment up above the mechanic shop, and not down in the cozy house that felt weirdly more like home than any place he’d been in years. 

He liked the night by himself, ignoring the flat and unforgiving mattress in favor of sprawling shamelessly in Dean’s unused bed.  Between the memory foam mattress and the soft scent of unfamiliar aftershave, it was the best night’s sleep that he’d had since leaving France. 

Jo became his little shadow when she wasn’t at work or out with her girlfriends doing whatever the hell it was the young people did for fun in a middle of nowhere town like Sioux Falls. She reminded Nick too much of Anna, in only the best of ways. Smart and sarcastic and she would have been a perfect temporary little sister if it wasn’t for the way that she liked to sit inches too close, or touch his arms or hands when there was no reason at all to be touching.

It was one of those unnecessary movements of physical contact that the men came home to. Granted, Nick and Jo were sharing a piano bench, so there was a partial excuse for once, but it still felt flimsy for the way that she nearly rested her head against his shoulder when looking up at him while he tried to explain when it would be the right and wrong times to use the pedal. 

“H-hey,” Sam stuttered from the doorway, still bundled up in a heavy winter coat and knit cap. His cheeks ruddy from the cold and his smile confused. “When’d you guys get the piano fixed?”  

Nick easily looked over Jo’s head, grinning. “Welcome back, stranger.”

Taking her hands from the keys and beaming, Jo turned to look over at her cousin. “Nick fixed it. And he’s been teaching me how to play Christmas songs.”

The look on Sam’s face said that, much like Ellen and Jo had felt, fixing this old piano was something akin to changing water into wine. 

Far from working any kind of miracle, all Nick had actually done was refelt two of the hammers so they’d stop making that god awful metallic  _ clang _ sound when E and F sharp were hit. Then he’d downloaded a tuning app to his phone and spent an hour with a comically tiny wrench tightening all the wires. The damn thing, as the story had gone, hadn’t been played since Bobby’s first wife had passed away twenty years ago. Apparently no one in the whole family played, so the little upright piano had simply fallen into disrepair.

Also, he only knew how to play three songs. Yes, all of them conveniently were Christmas songs, but still. He couldn’t read sheet music. He wasn’t even all that good at keeping a steady tempo, and he’d made these things very clear when Jo had demanded rather politely that he teach her something.

“Ok?” Sam finally said, still with this look of quiet disbelief. “Jo, Ellen wants you to help her gut the fish.”

Laughing, the girl got to her feet muttering, “Ew,” but not like she really minded all that much. She touched Nick’s shoulder in a way that she shouldn’t, “when I’m done with the ‘women’s work’ we can go over it again?”

“Sure.” He promised, patting her hand and watching her go―pointedly not squirming under Sam’s sudden scrutiny.     

Tugging off his hat, damp looking hair falling heavy around his face, Sam came far enough into the room to loom good and proper. “Luci,” he started in a soft and threatening way. 

Nick wrinkled his nose as an unexpected musk hit him. Apparently there were no showers at the fishing cabin, making him even more pleased that he’d stayed behind. “Sammich?”

“See now, even if you’ve been on your best behaviour while I was gone, you saying that makes me want to hurt you.”

“I missed you too, sweetie.”

Fighting a smile, Sam shook his head. 

“Not that I’m not loving seeing that beautiful face of yours again,” Nick hadn’t meant to start his sentence quite like that, but it felt natural and wasn’t a lie. “But you stink.”

A startled laugh broke out of Sam. “Yeah, well I pulled the short straw on the drive back. There’s only two showers and I’ve got to wait my turn.”

“And you decided to do your waiting with me?” Nick did his best to look charmed. “I’m flattered, but please. Don’t.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Sam reached over, gently fitting his hand to the spot where Jo had touched before leaving. “It’s not a treat for me either.”

With an exaggerated  _ sniff  _ Nick smelled the hand on his shoulder before making a face.

“Alright.” Sam stepped back and held his arms out in mock surrender. “I just wanted to check in and see how you’re doing.”

“I’m the epitome of alright.” Nick assured. “Open a dictionary, you’ll see my picture beside the definition of the word ‘fine’.”

“You do look  _ less  _ awful than normal.” Sam had to agree in the least flattering way possible. 

And for nearly two days Nick had only had very agreeable and kind (if not a little too kind in certain cases) women who seemed too worried if he’d eaten enough lunch and if he needed more tylenol. They’d been kind, Mary and Ellen both mom-ing him in ways that were unfamiliar but not unwelcome. 

It was beautiful to have Sam back.

Nick had missed it.  

He got to his feet, and same as he would for any other friend of his, he kissed the kid’s cheeks. More accurately, he kissed the air on either side of those unshaved cheeks, as friendship protocol dictated that he should. 

It was the wrong thing to do.

Firstly, because Sam smelled so much worse close up.

Secondly, because Sam looked momentarily terrified while not kissing the air softly in return.  

And Nick wasn’t going to apologize.“Welcome home?” Not for doing something that he’d done nearly every day for years. It’s just how you greet friends. 

“Yeah, ok.” Sam was holding himself very still, poised like he was worried he might suddenly fall. “You’ve got to warn a guy before you get all  _ French _ at them.”

“ _ Psssh _ ,” he scoffed. “Your mom doesn’t seem to mind it.”

“...you been kissing my mom?”

Nick had not. To the best of his memory, other than baking with the woman yesterday, he hadn’t even been within arm’s reach of her at any point. That didn’t stop him from grinning at Sam. “Not saying I have, not saying I haven’t.”

“Well, I’m saying that I spent my childhood out here and I know where to hide a body where no one would find it until the spring thaw.” He spoke with a smile, charm in his dimples. “You wanna kiss me, that’s one thing. But if I catch you putting that mouth of yours anywhere near my mom, the state police are going to have one hell of a time identifying your body.”   

No one had threatened Nick in days.

It was weird how much you could miss something like that.

Weirder still was how it made him feel.

Temptation looked an awful lot like a twenty year old boy and smelled like a tackle box.

There was a terrible moment in which impulsive stupidity almost took charge, but Nick beat it down. He smiled a careful smile and he laughed in a way that he hoped sounded confidant. “I’ve never laid a hand on a married woman, and I swore off blondes years ago,” he soothed. Trying to ease the giant and himself. “Consider Mary sacred. As off limits as all moms should be.”

Sam relaxed a little, enough to take a half step back. “Good. You gonna’ stop talking about her?”

“Hell no.” Nick laughed. “As long as it freaks you out I’m going to keep talking about how nice she smells and how cute her little ass is.”  

From the doorway, Dean asked a little to eagerly, “Who’s got a cute little ass?”

“Your mom.” Because Nick had never been one for self preservation. 

Smile ebbing, Dean took on the look of a man who wouldn’t mind going to jail for manslaughter. Objectively, he was just better at SCARY than his little brother―but Dean could undermine his own murderous glower with a single word: “Dude!” 

“ _ Dude _ ?” Nick couldn’t figure out how else he was supposed to respond. It didn’t help that beside him, Sam had raised a hand to scratch at his jaw line in an attempt to hide a smile.

Dean came closer, also reeking of two day’s worth of fishing, which made him as much a treat for the senses as his brother. “Is that my Styx shirt?”

“Yeah,” Nick looked down in slight surprise at the faded band tee that was so soft and worn that it had little holes around the collar. It had been buried in Dean’s dresser under many more reputable shirts, almost like someone had been ashamed of this one. “And I feel like you owe us all an apology for having the balls to even own a Styx shirt.”

For half a second Dean almost smiled. Almost. 

“Your foxy mom was doing laundry this morning. She took all Sam and my clothes and told me to just steal some of yours.” He shrugged and offered, “I told her guys don’t do that to each other, and she told me if you had a problem with it then I should tell you to take it up with her.” 

There seemed to be no doubt at all that Dean would be taking this up with his mother.

Somewhere in the house a masculine voice hollered, “Dean! Shower!” It was either John or Bobby. Nick hadn’t spent enough time with either of the men to know for sure―but all the same the older Winchester boy gave one last warning sort of look, an unspoken promise of eventual violence, before leaving. 

“That could have gone better.” Sam pointed out unnecessarily. 

“It also could have gone much worse?” 

With a wistful smile, Sam sighed. “You were so restrained with your smartass-ery when I first met you. What happened?” 

“Jetlag?” Nick offered for lack of any better explanation. “You can ask any of my siblings and they’ll tell you that I’m a complete bag of dicks. But if it’s any consolation I’ve been on my absolute, meeting-the-parents, best kind behaviour with all the other members of your family.”

Never before had Nick seen anyone look even half as sceptical as Sam looked right then. So he offered his best harmless smile.

“If Dad’s done with the shower it means Bobby’s probably about done too.” Sam listed off fun and irrelevant facts followed by, “so it’s probably just about my turn. You’re an adult and I can’t tell you what to do, but I’d feel a lot more comfortable if you came with me.”

“To the shower?”

“No.” Sam’s eyes had gone a little wide. “I meant… I meant come with me and wait in the hall where you probably won’t run into my Dad and tell him that you think his wife smells nice.”

Nick was many thing, but suicidal was not one of them. He hadn’t really traded more than a dozen words with John. The tiny exchange paired with what Sam had told him before their ‘date’ had lead him to believe that the ex-marine was not the kind of man to trifle with (even though Mary painted a considerably softer picture of him while they’d been baking and gossiping that morning). 

He flattened his hands over Sam’s chest, enjoying the unexpected squish of the fleece lined jacket, and gave the kid a gentle shove. “I’m going to call Cassy and check in with him like I promised I would and have neglected to do for a few days now. Then I’m going to let your lovely aunt teach me how to cook the fish that you manly men hunted and brought home.”

“You… you don’t hunt fish.”

“No, I buy them at the store like a civilised human.” Nick pushed again, offering another one of those charming sort of smiles that seemed to have zero effect on Sam. “Go. Unstink yourself and I promise not to start a fight with anyone.”

Still looking rather sceptical, Sam left, and Nick took himself to the kitchen because he could call his brother later. 

If the odour of Sam and Dean had been offensive, the kitchen was ten times worse. Nick gagged in the doorway, holding a hand over his nose, and asking the nearest woman, “God. Why does it smell like a fish died and all the other fish brought flowers?”

“Because Mary lit a candle to try and cover the smell.” Ellen explained with a wave of slightly bloodied hands to a little flickering flame on the windowsill over the sink. 

“I love my boys,” Mary laughed as she calmly beheaded a fish and passed it to the other woman to gut. “But sometimes the things they drag home...” 

Though it wasn’t directed at him, more at the literal pile of dead fish sitting on the counter, Nick felt a slight jab of truth in that unfinished lament. 

  
  
  
  



	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can I start with, for those of you sending monies to my ko-fi, do you have any idea how amazing you are?  
> Do you?  
> Because you are. you are keeping me sane now that school has started back up and I'm knee deep in first graders who for some reason think it's acceptable to eat another child's eraser. Thank you T_T
> 
> I just want to add that Dean is fundamentally a good guy. A good guy who makes small mistakes, and hopefully y'all will still like him after this chapter is done. Forgive him for he is mortal, and fictional, and it all turns out ok in the end.  
> Promise
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> And for those of you following along at home, our mini language lesson for today is:  
> Ça va= it's fine  
> Ne t'inquiète pas= don't worry

For the last few meals Jo had sat to Nick’s right side, close enough be brought into question now that the men had all returned home. Bobby and John said nothing, even if they both gave the seating arrangement a second look and a partial frown. It was Dean that called his little cousin out on it as he took his own seat on her other side. 

Keeping his voice conversationally low, Dean offered, “Go ahead and just sit in his lap already, why don’t you.”

“Oh shut the hell up,” Jo muttered back with a deathly glare. “I’m just making sure that there’s enough room for everyone to fit at the table.”

Dean hummed his scepticism and served himself a helping of the fish that had been so carefully prepared. 

On Nick’s otherside sat Sam; and Sam looked even more disapproving of this seating arrangement than Dean. But he, unlike his brother, had the decency not to say anything about it. Didn’t do anything about it... other than pointedly putting one arm around the back of Nick’s chair so casual like as he spoke with his family.

“So tomorrow we’ll all go out and pick out a tree, right?” Sam was more than a little eager, every bit like a kid at Christmas.

Shrugging, John waved to the side of the table that held his sons. “You boys can do it. Get us a good one.”

Sagging a little, Sam’s arm got heavy where it rested against Nick. “But we always all go together.”

“We talked it over and you boys are old enough to handle the responsibility of cutting down the tree this year.” It was easy to see where the brother’s got their matching smiles. That loose grin looked just as good on their father, and it felt like an important note that John was the one who’d passed those dimples on down to Sam.

Oh, and Nick liked it better when he’d only had a passing impression of John as some sort of imposing father figure. The man didn’t need a grin like that to go along with everything else. Just the same way that Dean didn’t need his freckles, and Sam didn’t need his  _ everything _ . It felt overly lucky that Jo reminded him too much of Anna, and Mary and Ellen were too motherly to qualify as anything other than ‘parental’ in his mind. 

He let himself lean into Sam for just a breath before reaching out and filling his plate with the food that he’d helped to make. When he sat back he noticed that John and Sam were sitting in the same sort of way. John with an arm around Mary’s seat. Sam with his arm around Nick’s. 

It was oddly possessive in a way that Nick oddly enjoyed.

And then Jo’s hand touched his leg under the table. 

Calmly, he set his fork down and took her by the wrist, dropping her hand into her own lap before giving her a pointed look that he hoped said ‘no’ in more certain terms than all the not encouragement that he’d been giving so far. “You going to want to practice the piano a bit more after dinner?” It was the first thing that popped into his mind and once he’d said it he sort of regretted how that might come off. 

Jo was looking down at her lap with a tiny frown, not like her feelings had been hurt, but like she wanted to argue. 

“Heard you two got that old thing playing again.” Bobby nodded in their direction. He was a man of very few words, and yet he still managed to feel warm under the gruffness. 

“Yes, sir.” Nick shrugged one shoulder. “Hope that wasn’t overstepping my welcome. Pianos aren’t really my specialty but Jo insisted I give it a try and…” and he’d never been good at telling any woman no to any request.

“It’s only been gathering dust.” Bobby scratched at his beard. “It’ll be good to hear someone playin’ it again.”   

Nick was glad to hear it. He’d been a bit worried to mess around with a dead woman’s piano. There were things that had belonged to his own mother that Dad had always kept to himself after she’d passed. It was hard to tell where the line of sentiment would fall, and it was different for everyone. 

Though he didn’t say it, Nick didn’t particularly like fish. There were potatoes and other things to eat, so it’s not like he wasn’t plenty full by the end of the meal. Too full to touch on the pie that he’d helped Mary make the day before. 

She brought the dessert over to the table once dishes had been cleared and left overs had been divided up into tupperware and shover into the fridge. She set it down with a small flourish like she’s waltzed in out of a nineteen-fifties sitcom.

Straightening from a comfortable looking slouch on the other side of Jo, Dean whistled low. “Is that an apple pie? Mom. You’re the best. You make me forget why I ever moved out in the first place.” He was already getting up from his seat, kissing the laughing woman on the cheeks and getting out a serving knife. 

“I only cut up the apples.” She admitted with a soft smile in Nick’s direction.   

With an eager bounce in his step that only dissolved into confusion, Dean returned to the table. He followed him mom’s smile, and sighed. “He makes pie too?”

Nick could only do his best to smile innocently and shrug. There was space there for him to brag a little about the fact that he’d created quite a wealthy mental recipes book during his time living above that old bakery. That even before that, he used to wreck the kitchen with Gabriel making pancakes, or pizza, or pudding, or whatever his little brother’s sweet tooth demanded that day. Instead he waved it off like the ‘no big deal’ that it was.

“If it turns out that he knows anything about cars we’re considering adoption.” Ellen laughed, passing out tiny plates. Her husband didn’t argue, only looked at the pie and nodded in agreement.

Laughing too, John suddenly seemed to remember that he needed to tell his wife about an old friend that they all ran into up at the lake while fishing. 

It was, much like roughly half of the dinner conversation, nothing at all that held any water with Nick. He prefered it that way. He didn’t have to participate. He could just people watch and relax. 

Though relaxing wasn’t the easiest thing to do with Sam sliding his arm back around Nick’s chair, whispering into his ear, “You wanna’ lay off trying to seduce  _ every  _ member of my family for at least one night?”

“ _ What _ ?”

“Pie?” Sam leaned back enough to make some rather close eye contact. “You could just come straight out and propose to him. It’d be a little more subtle.”

“It’s just a pie.” Nick tried to defend himself.

“Oh my god. This is so good.” Dean announced a little too loudly around a mouth full of the apparently seductive pastry. “Screw adoption. I’m jus’ gunna’ fuckin’ marry him.”

Nick was still left sputtering―slightly stunned by just how accurate Sam’s teasing had been.  

“Language, Dean.” Mary warned without much weight behind it. And considering that she’d used some fairly colorful words of her own over the past couple days, she didn’t seem to have much room to talk. It was just that parental instinct like a reflex. 

This here was the sort of thing that made Nick look apologetically over at Sam, though hardly anything up until now made him feel even remotely guilty. Accidently seducing a brother was different. “Your mom said if I wanted to get along with him I should make a pie. She didn’t tell me she was trying to trick me into becoming a son-in-law.”

Where as the words were meant for Sam, it earned a good laugh from the rest of the table. 

Smiling sheepishly, Nick did his best to hide a wince. With his own family he loved to be the one making the snide jokes, but here he was the momentary center of attention for people that were still relative strangers and it wasn’t his favorite. 

“In the straightest way possible, man.” Dean’s eyes were closed and he took a slow, deliberate breath. “You can stay with me. We’ll get bunk beds. You can just bake pie whenever. I won’t even make you do the dishes.”

It would be a lie to say that it wasn’t a great offer. “Sorry. Schools starts up in a few weeks. My students will be real confused if I don’t make it back, and then they have to cancel my classes, all my house plants will die. It’ll be just a giant mess.”

“Stupid students.” Dean cursed the college kids he’d never meet before resuming the consuming of his slice of pie. 

Dessert was passed Nick’s way and he politely foisted it off on Sam, with a muttered, “I’ll have some tomorrow if there’s leftovers.” 

For some reason that got most of the people around Nick laughing like they shared some kind of joke that he wasn’t in on. So with some suspicion (mostly towards Dean who was grinning as he ate the last bite of his pie before everyone had even started on their first), he took his slice back from Sam and just sort of kept it close. Protective.

Conversation resumed, someone made coffee, as you do. And despite being very full from dinner Nick wasn’t the sort of man who’d ever been able to say no to a small cup of coffee with dessert. 

Someone also got out a bottle of whiskey. 

Nick had been raised to be polite, which hardly ever affected his life choices except in times like this where it meant that he had to tip a little of the liquor into his mug. Wouldn’t want to offend anyone, after all. No… definitely wouldn’t want to offend anyone. Sipping on the coffee and ignoring his pie, Nick let his shoulders go lax, feeling that too warm brush of Sam’s arm still around the back of his chair. 

Aside from the night that they’d met, Nick and Sam had never really been around each other and not been basically on top of one another. There had been legitimate reasons for it too. The pretend date, the impromptu stabbing and subsequent makeshift ER, then crammed together on public transit. The proximity had always had a good reason…  _ before  _ making it out here to see Sam’s family. 

Now it was habit. Or at least that’s how Nick decided to interpret it. 

The familiarity in the touch was weirdly soothing or the whiskey was more expensive than he’d anticipated. Either way, all too quickly his head felt muddled and peaceful. Peaceful enough to spread out in that wide legged sort of sprawl that he usually only used when he was sitting on a couch and didn’t want there to be enough room for anyone to try and join him. 

It would have been good if ‘comfortable and relaxed’ came paired with some higher thought processes, because if his phone going off on vibrate didn’t give Nick a heart attack, then Sam suddenly jumping was just about enough to finish the job. He hadn’t even realised that he’d lined himself up from hip to knee with the kid until that electric tingle jolted out of his pleasantly blank state.  

Chuckling, Sam pulled his arm back and tucked one of those long legs of his under his chair in an effort to keep away from the continued vibration. “You ok there, old man?”

“ _ Ça va _ .” With the flap of one hand Nick shook his head and waved off the concern.  _ “Ne t'inquiète pas.” _ He wrestled his phone from his pocket and frowned at the screen.

Sam blinked and laughed with a soft exhale. “‘ _ Neh tinket pa _ ’ to you too,” before glancing down at the rectangular, soft glow of the phone. Nosy. Adorably nosy to see who would be calling.

It was Gabe. 

Nick sent the call to voicemail. 

“Not right now?” Sam relaxed but unfortunately didn’t put his arm back around Nick’s chair.

Turning the phone face down, Nick set it beside his still untouched pie. “Him and me… we’ve got a bet going.”

“Yeah?”

“He wants to hear that I’m…” Nick frowned, feelling more confused than he should for just a moment because for the life of him he couldn’t remember the english word he wanted to say. He’d only finished half his coffee, probably less than a shot of whiskey, but things were blurred on the edges. “That... _je_ _perd_ … ugh, what do you call it? When-when you’re _not_ winning?”

“...Losing?” Sam supplied uncertainty.

Or course. 

Losing.

Nick winked and shot at Sam with a clumsy set of finger pistols. “He wants to hear that I’m  _ losing _ .”

“You sure you’re alright?” The kid’s smile had withered on the edges, his eyebrows lowering. “Did you take pills before dinner?”

Probably? But it was only Tylenol. Sure there were rules against mixing booze and pills, but come on. Regular strength, over the counter, painkillers didn’t count. 

They shouldn’t at least.

“You can have one or the other, according to Cassy. Not pills  _ and  _ liquor.” Sam lectured softly, reading the inevitably defiant expression that Nick hadn’t intended to put on. “Did you even bother reading the list he gave us?” 

But a concern had suddenly come to Nick, and ignoring the question he had to ask one of his own. “Am I?”

“Wh- are you  _ what _ ?”

“Am I losing?”

“Well, you’re definitely not winning.” Sam didn’t hesitate to point out before sighing. It was possible that, as a part time bartender, this wouldn’t be the first time that he’d had to deal with an idiot who decided that warning labels were for suckers. “I think maybe it’s time to call it a night.”

Sleep didn’t sound terrible.

And for the fact that Nick really couldn’t remember how he got from the table up to the thin and overbearingly plaid couch bed, some sleep might not have been the worst plan. “Hey…” he pressed a hand over his mouth before scratching at his jaw and looking around the room to try and find anyone else. “Hello?”

“Hey,” Sam said from down around Nick’s feet, which was a weird place for him to be.

“Are you stealing my shoes?”

“I  _ am  _ stealing your shoes,” the kid laughed as he untied the second one and tugged it off. “And I’m going to sell them and keep all the money for myself. Just think of it. The shoes of such a famous, recluse author. I could fetch quite a pretty penny for these.”

Nick chuckled and it made the room tumble a little, so he closed his eyes. “Are you drunk too?”

“Very sober.” Sam promised as he gave one of Nick’s legs a firm _ patpat _ . “You feeling ok? You got real quiet for a while.”

“You really like asking me that, don’t you?” He pried one eye open and did his best to focus on the kid sitting near his knees.

“Stop falling apart and I’ll stop asking.” He had the smallest smile. “I called your brother, just to double check.  He said you’re an ass, but you’ll be fine. You just need to sleep it off.”

“I can sleep off being an ass?” This was news to Nick.

Oh and the look that Sam gave him was worth the sarcasm. “He also told me that if you get to be too much of a handful I have permission to hold a pillow over your face until I’ve put us all out of our misery.” 

“I like the Cassy that Cassy grew up to be.” Nick sighed softly, content, and closed his eyes again. The constant shifting of the room was making him motion sick. “He’s good.” That simple content statement couldn’t keep him afloat though. A horrible pitch caught his stomach like he was falling. Clumsily he caught at Sam’s wrist. The kid was pulling his shirt up and it tickled, and it was weird, and Nick couldn’t think of one damn good reason why the other man should be undressing him. “No,” he said in an almost firm tone.

“That brother you like so much wants a picture of your stitches. For some reason he’s convinced that you’re not taking care of yourself.” Sam was so calm even though his thumb was resting against bare skin. He wasn’t fighting though, just sitting so calm with a handful of Nick’s shirt.  

“It’s fine.” Nick promised. “I’ve been keeping it clean.”

“He told me no matter what you say he still wants to see how it’s looking.” So reasonable. Sam made a slow circle with his thumb and it was probably supposed to be a soothing gesture and it might have worked if he wasn't lightly tickling along the line of hair that peeked out from the waistband of his jeans.

Grinding his teeth, Nick let go of Sam. “Fine.” He folded his arms up above his head, making fists against his pillow to remove any temptation to take a swing or to … to... to do anything else incredibly inappropriate. 

No temptations. 

“I’ll be so careful,” Sam swore and tucked Nick’s shirt up to his chest. “If I hurt you, you’re welcome to punch me.”

It wasn’t the possible painfulness of the prodding that he was about to undergo that made Nick bite his tongue. Warily he watched the kid peel back the tape and gauze, those rough hands being so overly gentle.

“Oh, see, that looks fine.” Sam was not a doctor, but his prognosis was still appreciated.

“Told you.”

For a second, Sam glanced up from his work, one eyebrow raised. “You tell me a lot of things.” Then he pulled out Nick’s phone from his own pocket and snapped a couple glamor shots of the healthy and clean incision.  

“The phone I bought you is over on the kitchen counter.” Nick said softly, watching the other man so casually texting. “It came in the day you left for fishing.”

A surprised but sweet smile bloomed over Sam as sat a little taller to look into the kitchen. “Thank you. I’ll take it into town tomorrow and get a new SIM card.”

Nick grunted. His brain wasn’t supplying him with too many words at that moment. 

“Alright. I sent the pictures. He’s saying you’re looking ok, but still wants you to try and be more careful.” Sam set the pilfered phone down on the pillow beside Nick’s head. “No mixing pills and booze.”

“It was  _ Tylenol _ .”

“Just be more careful.” Sam insisted and stood. “We worry.”

Castiel was required by blood to worry. Sam just did it because he was weird.

“I’ll go get you some new bandages.” The kid promised as he walked to the otherside of the small apartment. “Just stay put.”

Where the hell was he going to go?

The front door opened and a wash of winter night air moved over Nick’s unprotected body. 

Dean stopped halfway into his own apartment and blinked in confusion at the ever so slightly undressed man sprawled over his sofa. 

“You wanna close the door?” Nick grunted, knowing full well how weird this must look.

With a second sideways glance towards the couch, Dean closed the door. “You uh,” the littlest hook of a smile caught at him and he took a small step closer. “You feelin’ better?”

“Not really.” These were not improved circumstances to anything. Nick was feeling incredibly vulnerable like this and he’d like to fix his shirt and sit up.

Thankfully Sam came back with the needed medical supplies. Nodding to his brother, he sat back on the edge of the bed beside Nick’s hip and began the careful process of taping new gauze in place.

After standing there and watching for longer than necessary, Dean smacked his brother’s shoulder. “I’m headed to bed. You two kids don’t stay up to late.”

Nick was glad to be rid of the audience, though Sam seemed to have been rather unaware for how focused he was on his rather simple but important job. Unclenching one fist, Nick gave a halfhearted wave. “Night.” And it might have been his self conscious imagination, but he swore that Sam’s older brother lingered just a bit too long before closing his bedroom door behind him. 

“It’s really not that bad.” Sam said rather suddenly.

“I told you.” Nick itched to push his shirt back down.

“I mean all of it.” Sam smoothed his fingers around the edges of tape. He lightly touched on an old bullet wound. “I didn’t get a chance to really look too closely while your brother was sewing you up. How many times have you been shot?” It was very near a ramble, just a line of disjointed thoughts.

“Five times.” Nick didn’t know how to feel about the way that Sam walked his fingers from one slick scar to the next, finding the pockmark like scars that bullets made a lifetime ago. 

“I only see three.”

“One in my right shoulder.” Nick unfolded his arms, lightly touching the scar through his shirt before crossing his arms back over his chest. “One in the leg.”

“In the leg?” Sam honestly seemed surprised as he looked up from about two dozen old scars spread out over Nick’s stomach and chest with no apparent pattern.

“Despite what it might look like, no one particularly had it out for my torso.” Nick realised that he’d only ever been in long sleeves while he’d been around Sam, and his pants had stayed on for obvious reasons. It hid a lot of the extra scars from fun things like broken bones and friendly knife fights. 

“And… you’re saying that you won most of these fights from when you were younger?” Sam seemed sceptical. 

“I was a punk ass kid who went to a private school upstate,” Nick started a little uneasily. Talking made him feel better, and considering that he didn’t have much else that he could do when laid out like this, he kept going. “They kept me and my brothers in different wings of the dorms. I think they were hoping to avoid any of us ganging up and starting any serious trouble. Gabe was funny and could get along with anyone. Michael was tall and good looking and played polo. I didn’t hit my growth spurt until I was nearly seventeen, and I read books. For some reason this made some of the other kids think that I’d be an easy target.”

Sam’s curious expression had turned to one of sympathy, though it was unlikely that he’d ever been the short, quiet kid in school.  

“My first year there, a senior cornered me in the locker room after everyone else had left.” Nick wasn’t looking for sympathy.  “He got a little rough and I broke his nose.”

A sudden grin took Sam and he mercifully smoothed Nick’s shirt back into place. “I like the idea of little blue haired you just flattening a guy.”

“The blue hair was only for summers.” Nick beamed, a feeling of happy creeping in to cover all that uncertainty. “We had a very strict dress code in school.”

“Uniforms?”

“With ties and everything.”

“You must have been adorable.”

“Many thought so, and many got their teeth knocked in for saying it.” Nick had mixed memories of his six years worth of private school . He’d spent an awful lot of time up in administration, between the principal’s and nurses’ office. 

“Glad you grew out of that.”

“Who said I did?” Maybe Nick didn’t default immediately to fistacufs now a days, but it was still always on the table. He’d stubbornly refused to grow out of anything.

“You’re still adorable.” Sam teased and got to his feet. “You ok for a bit while I go brush my teeth and stuff?”

“Oh my god.” Sighing, Nick rolled onto his good side. “I’m not an invalid. I’m fine. Take all the damn time you need. I promise I won’t have gotten lost or accidentally strangled on shoelaces or something while you’re gone.” 

“Alright, alright.” Raising his hands in momentary surrender, Sam laughed. “I just promised I’d look out for you.”

“Consider it a job well done.” Nick gave a half hearted thumbs up. “You can feel free to go ahead and take the rest of the night off.”

“ _ Mmhmp _ .” And then with a last bit of unneeded mockery, Sam picked up Nick’s shoes from where he’d dropped them and set them beside the front door. “Just in case… I know how tempting shoelaces can be.”

Laughing made Nick’s side hurt a little extra, but it didn’t stop him. “You know what? Fuck you.” 

It was dark when Nick woke up a few hours later. The glow of his phone beside his face told him that it was nearly two in the morning, and that he now had eight missed calls from Gabriel. Rubbing an eye and wincing into the overly bright screen, Nick sat up and hit redial. There was a fine line between annoying little brother and something might actually be wrong. 

“Hey,” he whispered when Gabe picked up before the second ring. “You alright?”

“Am  _ I _ alright?” His little brother practically yelled into his end of the phone. “I’ve just recently started coming to terms with the fact that you’re probably dead in a ditch somewhere. What the hell happened to you, big bro?”

“Nothing?”

“Cas calls me yesterday, says he hasn’t heard from you since he stitched you up?” The quiet outrage in his voice showed that apparently no one had told him about the stabbing, and Nick had definitely not mentioned it in any of the texts that they’d traded a few days back. “Said he’s been trying to call  _ your  _ Sam, but it just goes straight to voicemail.”

“He lost his phone in the snow.” Nick whispered, aware of Sam snoring softly beside him.

“And you didn’t think at any point that maybe you should call your doctor and tell him that you’re not dead?”

This was shaping up to be a longer phone call then he’d wanted it to, especially since it seemed that it would mostly just be a lecture. He slid from the bed and walked as quietly as he could through the small and dark apartment. “I was going to call this morning and didn’t get around to it. And Sam called him tonight when I passed out, so he’s been updated I guess…” distracted, he leaned against the wall and slid his feet into his ratty old shoes, not even bothering with the laces. 

“Passed out?” Gabe raised his voice and Nick had to hold his phone against his shoulder to muffle the sound.

Whatever else his brother was yelling at him got lost as Nick clumsily stole one of the heavy winter coats hanging beside the door and let himself outside. He’d only been looking for a quiet corner to tell Gabriel to piss off, he hadn’t expected to find a rather surprised looking Dean sitting on the porch swing with his legs propped up on the railing. 

Nick set his phone down on the railing while the muffled lecture continued, and he pulled his arms through the sleeves, kind of liking the weight of the coat that smelled faintly of Sam and fish. Picking back up his phone he caught the tail end of some colorful insult that almost made him smile.

“You need to calm the hell down. It’s way too late at night for this.”

“He seemed to think that the only reason you wouldn’t call him was death.” Gabriel complained. “And then I try to call you, because you haven’t texted me back in a few days and then you’re not answering me either.”

Nick could see where he might have caused a little distress and he almost felt bad for it. “He’s so fuckin’ worried, why didn’t he just call?”

“Yeah well, apparently you promised―so he was waiting and assuming that you were dead.”

Shaking his head, Nick sat down on the bench about as far as he could from Dean, though he did notice that aside from the blanket around the other man’s shoulders (a plaid quilt, naturally) he looked to be loosely holding a bottle of whiskey and his own phone. Maybe he’d come outside for the same reasons that Nick had. Hoping not to wake anyone.

“Well, like I said, Sam called him a few hours ago. We should be good.”

Gabe, like someone’s disappointed grandmother, continued on relentlessly. “It wouldn’t kill you to give him a call yourself.”

“In the morning.” Nick was good at making promises that he had little intention of keeping. For Castiel, though? He might actually try a little harder to be a decent brother. After all, Cassy had access to needles and other poking devices that might be considered a threat.

“So… aside from you being your regular son of a bitch self, how’s things going?”

“I’m too fuckin’ tired to chat if that’s what you’re going for here.”

“I just mean it’s a nice job getting yourself all cut up and pathetic so the kid has to take care of you. I respect you playing the sad puppy card. It’s what I would have done.”

Nick wondered how much of this other side of the conversation Dean could hear. The man beside him looked disinterested enough, eye fixed on the hazy distance as he took an occasional small sip from the bottle in his hand. Still… Nick switched over to French, knowing that even if his brother might be out of practice, Gabe should be able to keep up all the same. “ _ If you’re hoping I’ll say that things aren’t working out I’ve got bad news for you.” _

There was a pause over the line as Gabriel fought to translate. After all, if it was around two out here, it was only later in New York. Switching languages was always hard when your brain was half asleep, and Gabe kept with his easier English. “You… is he there with you right now?”

“ _ We do sleep in the same bed, if that’s what you’re asking _ .” Nick rubbed at his jaw, relishing in the truth that was oh so misleading. 

“How the hell are you doing this?” Gabe whined. “You’re the least appealing, sorry looking, mean son of a bitch in our family.”

“ _ Maybe he likes mean sons of bitches? _ ” Nick offered around a soft yawn. “ _ No accounting for taste _ .”

“He’s falling in love with your charm and money, is what you’re saying?” There was a heavy amount of doubt in his words. “Just like you planned?”

Sam had better sense than that. Nick could just tell. 

“Like I planned,” he agreed, lying through his teeth. There was no plan. He wasn’t romancing the kid. He wouldn’t even know what to do with the attention of someone like Sam if he had it. Friends was far more than Nick had ever anticipated and he was honestly really happy with just that alone. He didn’t need to relay these thoughts to his younger brother. Thoughts like that could only cost him forty thousand dollars and whatever dignity he was still clinging to. “Now that you know I’m not dead yet, can you stop calling me and let me get some sleep?”

“Yeah, yeah. Call Cassy in the morning. No more getting stabbed. Kiss that pretty boy of yours for me. I love your dumb face. Good night.”

Words that were rattled off without pause as Nick quietly interjected, “I will. I won’t. Kiss Kali for me. Fuck you. Good night.” And then he gratefully hung up the call and jammed the phone down into one of the deep jacket pockets. “Jesus,” he sighed, watching his breath ghost up in a silvery cloud. “You ever just get caught in a phone call with your brother that won't end?” 

“Nah,” Dean answered after a long pause, as if he wasn’t sure that the question had been directed at him. “I love when Sammy calls.”

And Nick could see the lure of it. Sam was kind of eighteen times more fantastic than Gabriel. He folded his arms over his chest and settled deeper into the coat. He nodded towards the other man’s phone. “… Girlfriend?”

Dean shifted and took another small sip of his drink. “Don’t have a girlfriend.”   

“No? Sam told me that you’d gone through just about every girl in Sioux Falls by the time he left for college. I’d have thought that by now someone new would have turned legal age, or someone’s husband might have died.”

That got a smile out of Dean, that same loose grin his brother wore so well.  “Well, usually I have to drive down to Harrisburg when I’m wanting a little action. They don’t have posters of me up in  _ all  _ the bars just yet.”

Nick chuckled, liking the idea of warning posters for serial flirters, to let local ladies know to be on their guard.

“I didn’t wanna wake you two.” Dean set the whiskey down beside his boots and picked up his own phone, looking at it almost affectionately before tucking it away. “Friend of mine needed to talk. He’s got some family shit goin’ on.”

Nodding sympathetically, Nick turned his face up towards the stars, puffing his dragon breaths and looking at the sky. It was easy to forget just how many stars there could be until you found yourself out in the middle of nowhere, away from city lights.

It was cold out here. The same kind of cold that he’d noticed the first night getting off the bus. That advanced chill that he didn’t usually get to experience because of a reasonable sleep schedule and no fondness at all for winter months. It wasn’t awful, but he wouldn’t want to stay out in it much longer all the same.

Dean nudged him with the bottle that he’d picked back up. A friendly offer that Nick waved off. 

“Oh,” the other man grinned over the mouth of the bottle. “I forgot you were a bit of a lightweight.”

“ _ Lightweight _ ?” Nick instantly took offence, even as he started laughing again. “You wanna fight me, shorty? Because I’m real tired and my hands are almost numb, but those are fighting words and I’ll throw down.”

Laughing through his nose, Dean took a longer drink than before. He raised just his middle finger from where he held the bottle, flipping NIck off with an easy smile. 

“I’ve been drinking since before you were born, you disrespectful kid.” Nick grumbled. 

“Kid? I’m twenty five.”

“Well, good for you.”

Dean just laughed again. “I spend two days with my brother and he tells me everything about  you, but he somehow left out the part about you being such a dry son of a bitch.”

“I feel like I should be offended. My sarcasm is my best feature―how dare he leave it out.”

“Best feature, hm?” The other man looked him over slowly, eyes lingering slightly on the pilfered t-shirt that Nick was still wearing. “Yeah. Alright.”

Playing with the zipper pull of his coat, Nick resumed his long staring up at the sky. Not any part of the last few days were how he’d envisioned his winter vacation going when he’d left home and he had absolutely zero complaints about that fact. 

“I was helpin’ Jo with dishes tonight.”  Dean started slowly. “She had a lot to say about you too.”

“...Yeah?”

“You do know that she’s just barely nineteen, right?”

Nick had no idea why that fact was important, but he nodded, because yes he knew. 

“And she’s got a boyfriend.”

“That she hadn’t mentioned.” Nick glanced over, suddenly realising a little too late what this conversation was. “But good for her. She’s a sweet kid. Reminds me of my little sister.”

Dean watched him, eyes narrowed just a touch before he finally nodded. “You sit as close to your sister as you do with Jo?”

“Ok, I’m an innocent bystander in the whole sitting situation.”

“Dude, there’s a space between two people that, once it’s gone, all ‘innocent bystander’ bull shit goes out the window.”

“Look,” Nick braced himself against the sharp pain in his side that came along with the way that he scooted on down the bench. “This here? This is how close she sits to me. Not touching. Just close. Platonic.”

“It’s too damn late at night to use words like  _ platonic _ or  _ bystander _ . Slow it down, professor.”

“Alright. I’ll go a little slower for you, shorty.” 

Dean snickered.

“So this is a not kissing- friendly- safe distance.” Laughing, Nick pulled an arm around the back of the bench, leaning closer. “And this? If you catch me like this, then you can start to frown like you are.” He braced a hand against the wall behind the bench, notching the other man’s shoulder beneath his own arm. “This is the kind of ‘probably a bad idea’ space between two people that you should always worry about.” 

The laugh had left Dean’s eyes and his smile had started to fade quietly. “Yeah… ok. I’m seeing the difference.”

“Good.” Nick liked that they were on the same page.

“So…” Dean was warm. So very warm under his blanket and the way that he was very nearly pressed up against Nick’s chest. “You got a thing for my brother?”

Startled,  Nick choked a little, coughing on the cold air as he looked sideways at the other man. “Excuse me?”

“It’s just a question.”

“No, um,” he laughed uneasily at the crazy question. “I don’t have a  _ thing _ for your brother.” Which, oddly was a lie; only Nick hadn’t known that until the instant the words left his mouth. He caught his breath again, coughing once more as he tried to make sense of the sudden realisation. “It would be… really...  _ really  _ stupid of me to go and get feelings for someone who made such a big deal about how incredibly straight he was the first time I met him.”

Dean made a soft, thoughtful sound through his teeth. “And you?”

_ And him _ … Nick blinked, trying to focus through the quiet panic at the fact that apparently he had a small crush on the man asleep inside the apartment. It was a little confusing and more than very frustrating to suddenly be aware of something so incredibly stupid. 

When the hell had this happened? 

How long had that little pile of feelings been collecting in the corner, just waiting to be noticed? 

“You.” Dean repeated, oblivious to the emotional upheaval happening beside him. “Are you ‘incredibly straight’ too?”

Thoughts and concerns slowed down at a question like that. 

Nick blinked, examining that negligible space between them. 

That was a thing. 

That was a nice and distracting thing. 

“I…” and for a second he struggled with how to put his own sexuality in some kind of order. “I think that physical attraction... for  _ some  _ people… has nothing to do with what’s in your pants and everything to do with… with a smile... or a laugh... or the way someone’s mouth looks when you’re so sure you know just how it would feel against your own.” 

The whiskey on Dean’s breath was noticeable from this close. “You know, seeing as you’re still wearing my Styx shirt, and practically in my lap, I was really expecting a more solid answer.” 

And Nick had thought that’d he’d been rather direct, but maybe he could take a few notes from Dean on this one.

“You slept in my bed last night,” the other man pointed out not at all like that fact bothered him. And it was anyone’s guess how he’d figured out his room had been invaded, seeing as Nick had made a point to remake the bed and close the door like he’d never been in there at all. “… you wanna’ do it again tonight?”

Then began some very simple, very wordless negotiation.

Nick raised his eyebrows, tilting his head in question.

Dean mimicked the expression, the crook of his mouth a little mocking.

Nodding back towards the house, Nick felt himself start to smile.

Tongue flicking out to lick his lower lip, Dean shrugged, looked down at the bench they were sitting on, and gave another little jerk of his shoulders.

Nick looked down at the bench, back at the front door, bench again, and swayed into a shrug of his own.

Dean cocked his head again, pointedly looking at Nick’s mouth.

It was a glance that Nick couldn’t help but return, because those Winchester men had some lips that begged to be bitten and it was nice to have permission to just focus on them openly.

Crooking a finger at Nick, Dean motioned for him to come down those few inches that still lingered between them, then with that same hand he cupped the back of Nick’s neck and pulled him in, impatient for his little request to be followed. 

The first kiss mashed their cold noses together and it wasn’t the best, but they both seemed rather determined, and by the third kiss Nick was tasting the whiskey slick of the back of Dean’s teeth. They fit together in the wrong kinds of ways, but also in the way that very single minded people could always manage. 

It didn’t seem to matter that they couldn’t agree who was leading this dance. It didn’t matter that they kept taking turns pushing one another back into the bench with increasing roughness. Or the way that every time Nick got his hands on Dean’s cheeks the other man would mouth his palms with distracted kisses before pushing them away somewhere else. Likewise, every single time that Dean started to try and lay Nick back onto the bench he couldn’t help but fight it―he wasn’t a damn princess, he wouldn’t be gently laid down  _ anywhere _ . Not by some handsome, stubbled, well liquored, lumberjack with bowlegs. He had certain personal standards on who he’d spread his legs for. And Dean might be very good for a quick and dirty fumble, but he wasn’t the kind of man that Nick would consider lowering his guard and getting on his knees for.  

There was no tenderness in their touch, no romance, just a clumsy kind of hunger and an occasional argument given in growls and stifled moans. 

Nick wasn’t hip to most of the current slang, but he could remember some of his students using the word ‘thirsty’, and the word hadn’t made much sense to him in context―right up until Dean’s mouth moved to his throat, kissing a bruise behind his ear. A cold hand had snuck it’s way into his coat, fingers tracing the line of his ribs before sliding to the small of his back, and Nick felt  _ thirsty _ . The kind when you’ve been out in the yard most of the morning, working under the sun, sweating and muscles starting to ache, and no matter that you were now on your second glass of water to try and sooth your parched throat, it still didn’t feel like enough.

It was very hard to get a handful of Dean’s hair with how short it was and how cold Nick’s fingers were; he still managed, pulling the other man back a little forcefully. It was stupid, but Nick wanted to see him, wanted a reminder of who he was touching, of whose hand had found his bare skin and was digging short nails into the base of his spine. This whole thing was half way between a one night stand and an actual  _ thing _ , if only because Dean had a name and a face and would still exist tomorrow.  

With a low noise in his throat, Dean grinned. His eyes wild and dark as sin under the faint porch light. “Hey,” he whispered, not like a protest, but like a cheerful greeting. Just surprised and happy to be here.

“Hey,” Nick repeated, surprised at the wrecked sound of his own voice. “Is, uh… is this going to be weird tomorrow?”

“Dude, it’s been  _ months _ for me.” Dean pulled against the hand in his hair, stealing a slow, open mouthed kiss that left them both a little breathless. “Just fuckin’ long months and I…” He’d been speaking with his mouth against Nick’s and the contact was apparently  _ very  _ distracting because they both got rather lost in kissing for another minute, or five. 

In a show of surprising self control, Nick pulled back, pressing his forehead against Dean’s and taking a forcibly slow breath. “ _ Months _ ?” 

“It’s torture.” Dean admitted, though the  _ why _ seemed like a bit of a mystery. For all accounts and purposes, if the stories were to be believed, he didn’t seem the sort of man to just go celibate. But he didn’t elaborate, but just made the clear offer of, “in the morning, if you wanna’ pretend that we’ve never seen each other before… that’s fuckin’ fine with me. Just…” he kissed again, this time with a little too much teeth. “Just for right now…” and another kiss that went on long enough they both started to forget that they’d been speaking at all. 

“Just for right now,” Nick agreed to whatever he was meant to agree with, easy and complacent because despite not being a princess, part of him found that he was really starting to enjoy the way that Dean was was cradling him close, holding him breathlessly tight while they kissed.  

Where as Nick would admit to a certain thirst, Dean seemed to be starving to death. One hand stayed molded to the back of Nick’s neck, but the other left the warm shelter beneath Nick’s jacket and it took the older man a moment to realise that Dean had pressed it between his own legs, rubbing himself through his jeans.

Breaking the kiss and struggling to focus, Nick found himself laughing. “You, uh, want help with that, cowboy?”    

Dean laughed too, startled by the question, shameless and fucking beautiful. “Force of habit, man.” He gave a glancing kind of kiss, more teeth than lips and rather stunning while he clumsily found one of Nick’s hands and guided it where he needed it most. “Got used to… to doing it all on my own and,  _ fuck. _ ” He kissed Nick again while he rolled his hips and found some good friction between them.  “For months I’ve been in the this long distance thing and it’s,  _ uhng _ , it’s… it’s screwing me up.” 

Taking in those very lost sorts of words moaned into his mouth, Nick struggled to make sense of it.  _ Long distance thing _ . That phrase bounced around in his head while he kissed and kissed and― “You’re dating someone?”

Those pale green eyes of Dean’s were closed tight, color high on his cheeks as he shuttered ever so prettily. “Yeah… sort of.” He leaned back in, that hand on the back of Nick’s neck surprisingly strong.

It made pulling away again more than a little difficult and Nick had to resort to raising both his own hands skyward, lacing his fingers over his head in open surrender.

“What...” Dean broke, his face blank with need and confusion. “No.  _ No _ , come on, man. Don’t―”

“You’re cheating on them?”

“He’s not here and you are, so fuck him,” was the declaration, Dean looking up at Nick with so much want it was nearly begging.

And Nick was the sort of man who had nearly no hard boundaries when it came to screwing around. If the other party was consenting, of a legal age, and not a current or former student of his, then he was pretty much always down for almost anything. But there was a single red flag amidst that sea of ‘yes please and thank you’. “I can’t.” He panted, his body arguing rather loudly against his heart. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”

“I’m not gonna’ tell him. You’re not gonna’ tell him.” Dean was at the bargaining stage of grief already, half curled around Nick, the two of them not at all properly utilizing the bench on which they sat. “It’s not a crime without a witness.”   

The rationality of it made Nick want to start swearing and yelling. He swallowed hard, hands shaking where he still held them up above his head. “I… I was engaged once. Walked in on her in bed with my best friend.” He couldn’t look right at Dean, focusing instead on the spray of starlight freckling the sky, trying desperately to calm his body because it wasn’t the boss here, he was, and hell no, they were done. Done. “I can’t do that to someone else.”

Slowly, Dean nodded. He let his head fall back, throat bobbing as he audibly swallowed. “Yeah… yeah. Alright. Fuck.” Reluctantly he let go of Nick, hands falling away before he pressed them to his own face and just  _ sighed _ .

The hesitant movement gave Nick just enough breathing room to slide down the bench. Away. Finding quiet safety in the distance because regardless of what decision he’d made here, his body wasn’t quite on board just yet. “Fuck indeed,” he agreed. 

“...You sure?” Dean asked softly like he just wanted one last chance for Nick to change his mind and help them both out.

“Really fucking sure.” Swearing made him feel better. Other things might make him feel even better, but he was ignoring those insistent suggestions his libido was throwing out. Suggestions that involved that animalistically bared throat so very kissably close to him even still. God, but he knew he could make Dean beg. He could fuck Dean until the only word the kid could remember was Nick’s name. 

And it was more difficult than it should have been to convince himself as to why that would be a bad thing.

Unsteadily, he got to his feet. 

“I’m… I’m a’gonna’ go to sleep.” 

With his hands still over his face, and his voice muffled, Dean offered, “My bed’s still open.”

“Whooh, boy.” His legs felt like lead, his joints overly oiled and hardly able to hold him up. “Yeah. No. That wouldn’t be a good idea.”

“I mean I’ll sleep on the couch with Sam.” Dean sat up a bit straighter, running his hands roughly down his face, showing his teeth as he drew a hard breath. “You’re hurt. Take the bed.”

Nick didn’t like pity.

But Nick also didn’t like the couch. 

He simply nodded his thanks and stumbled as quietly as he could back inside.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so... how have you been?  
> Doing alright?  
> If no, then can the text equivalent of 28 pages of dumb boys help make things a little nicer? I know that writing this giant chapter certainly helped me find my happy place :3  
> Thank you for the lovely reviews <3 Comments of any kind make me unreasonably happy. I love hearing from other humans, over here in my dark little, over heated, corner of the internet. Anyone else who works with, or spends their days with small children, knows the value of talking to other adults. 
> 
> Thank you to my glorious beta reader, Coplins, who helped to instigate all the near innocent touching that goes on at the end of this chapter, paving the way for these boys and some really nice bad touching later XD
> 
> And thank you to you sexy beasts who donate to my ko-fi, because hot dang, I've been having a lame few weeks and those caffeinated beverages keep me strong. 
> 
> Thank you, thank you to everyone who's been tagging along for this fun little journey down familiar roads. It's nice to go with friends <3<3

The last time that Sam had woken up in bed with his brother they’d been nine and thirteen respectively. Sharing the top bunk because Jo had come to stay with them for a week while Aunt Ellen was off on a honeymoon with Uncle Bobby. It had been weird back then to be crammed into the small space with his sweaty older brother who was mostly legs and elbows and a bad attitude. It was a memory that he hadn’t brought up in years, but the annoyed, overly warm feelings came right back when he rolled over in the morning to see Dean sleeping quietly on the left side of the fold out bed.

It’s not that he didn’t like his brother, it’s just that his was not the face Sam expected to see when he woke.

Sam rolled onto his back, stretching and running his hands through his hair, wondering where it was that Nick had gone. Logic would say that if Dean was out here, then the other man would be in the bedroom―however Sam had started to learn that logic only seemed to guide Nick’s actions about a third of the time, so it was really anyone’s guess where the blond might have laid his head for the night. A concerning thought since Sam was positive that Nick had been gently snoring beside him when he’d finally dozed off last night.

“God this thing’s uncomfortable.” Dean quietly grumbled, apparently having woken with all Sam’s light shifting around.

“You get used to it.” He promised with a laugh. “Hey, um, why’d you sleep out here―lose a bet or something?”

Dean humed softly through a yawn. “Thought I’d let the cripple take the good bed.”

“That’s… nice of you.”

“Hey, that’s me. Mr. Fuckin’ Nice Guy.” Sitting up, Dean stretched a little and honestly looked like he’d slept very, very badly.

But the old fold out couch had that kind of a reputation, so Sam didn’t think too much of it. “You two talk last night after I went to sleep?”

The laugh that came out of Dean was a little strangled. He wasn’t always a morning person though, so the manic sound could be easily written off. “Yeah. We talked for a bit.”

“And?” He was aware of how overly eager he sounded, and found that he didn’t care. Nick was his friend and it was important to him that the two men get along, at least well enough to not come to blows―which might be hard for them considering in the whole week and a half that Sam had known Nick the man had been in two verifiable fist fights, and Dean… well, Dean could start a fight in an empty house.

“And _what_?” Dean sat up, frowning at the room before shrugging. “He’s alright I guess.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Seems like a good guy.” Dean got up and flicked on the coffee maker before going into the bathroom and closing the door behind him. Apparently it was time for a shower, and he was done talking.

Sam sat there, baffled at the positive review of Nick. A little ‘ _YAY_ ’ felt appropriate, but at the same time, even Sam was reluctant to pin a title like ‘good guy’ on the man.

Must have been some really nice talk last night.

He made his way to the kitchen, pulling down a mug and only jumping a little when he heard the soft, “Oh, me too, me too,” being sung from behind him. Turning, he saw Nick standing sleepily in the hall.

“Morning,” Sam pulled down a second mug, wondering if there’d be enough coffee left in the pot for Dean to have some when he got out of the shower. “How was sleeping in a real bed?”

Nick looked a little bleary eyed, hair flattened on one side, Styx t-shirt wrinkled, belt gone, top button of his jeans undone. Confused and bewildered, but a small smile crept in on the edges. “Memory foam is amazing. You’re missing out, you peasant.”

Though he knew it shouldn’t, and he wasn’t sure why it even was in the first place, Sam was weirdly distracted by Nick’s sleep rumpled appearance. “You wanna go get dressed, I’ll get your coffee.”

This offer appeared to confuse Nick who continued to stand there blankly before nodding slowly and finding a change of clean clothes from the pile of neatly folded laundry on the counter where Mom had put it at some point yesterday. “Hey… remind me to call Cassy later.”

“Alright.”

“And we’ll get your new phone set up today because apparently my brother had been trying to call you at some point to check on me and couldn’t... and maybe now we’re both in trouble.”

Sam couldn’t help but think about the short and clipped conversation he’d had with the dark haired man via Nick’s phone last night. Apparently Nick had promised to call his brother and check in regularly and had been neglecting to do so since they left New York. And even not knowing Castiel all that well, Sam felt that the man had sounded relieved when he’d answered the phone and then a combination of worried and annoyed when he realised that one, it was not his brother finally calling―and two, that Nick had done something stupid to himself. “I think I can handle any trouble from him. He’s small… but yeah. We can go into town and get the phone thing sorted before we go pick out a tree.”

“The fact that you people might actually cut down your own Christmas tree is some sort of Hallmark family bull shit.” Nick had this tired smile, and it was nice to see him unfocused when it was for normal reason instead of booze and pills. He was very nearly _cute_ in a way that Sam hadn’t anticipated a full grown man ever being. “It shouldn’t surprise me at this point, and yet...”

Sam knew that he should be slightly defensive of his family’s little traditions, but he was looking instead at the strip of very pale skin that showed between Nick’s shirt and jeans. “Go get dressed,” _please_. Because Sam didn’t even want to address why something like that would be distracting to him, though he would happily write it off as curiosity over the faint scars peeking, and that it was too early in the morning to be having complicated thoughts like these.

Dragging his feet and making little _scuff scuff_ sounds, Nick went back to the bedroom, leaving Sam to muddle around with the coffee situation. The distracted feeling lingered even though the source of it had left and he had no idea what to do with himself except pour cups of coffee. And he really, really wished that Nick didn’t drink his black, because it would have helped stretch out the prep time.

But no. Nick took his coffee plain, and Sam was forced to really thoroughly stir milk into his own coffee, the spoon clinking as he worked on getting a nice rhythm down. Pointedly, he kept his mind blank, doing his best to not think any thoughts that didn’t relate to beverages. Today could be a rather long day and he was determined to start it off nice and slow, and without unnecessary complications.

By the time the older man came back, eyes a little more focused, Sam had two cups of coffee sitting beside him at the kitchen table.

“Thank you,” Nick told the coffee rather directly as he sat down and hugged the nearest mug between his hands.   

“I thought that you were a morning person,” Sam looked through the fall of his hair, watching the man beside him gazing into the blackness of his coffee like he was trying to read the mysteries written in the steam trails.

“I…” Nick’s pale eyes flicked up, he wore a faint smile. “I am. Just got some things on my mind this morning.”

“Oh?” And quiet concern crept in. “You wanna’―”

“Please don’t offer to ‘talk with me about it’. I don’t think I can deal with that sweet, sympathetic, puppy dog face of yours on top of everything else.” His smile grew, his voice stayed gentle, and it all softened the deprecating words.

Wanting to help and being allowed to help were two different things, and Sam was left to pout. “You ok though?”

“You know what I love about you?” Nick was biting his lip, holding in a gentle laugh that made his shoulders shake. “That you keep asking that damn question like you’re really expecting the answer to change.”

“No one is fine all the time, Luci.”

Nick’s smile cracked into a brief grin as he raised his mug. “Wanna’ bet?”

The bathroom door opened and Dean came to join them, never been one for long showers unless it somehow inconvenienced Sam. He ducked into his room and came out less than a minute later dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. Skirting the table, he took Nick’s coffee from his hands and sat down, adding milk and sugar despite the protests.

“You are a monster.” Nick hissed between his teeth, obviously pained as he watched his coffee be destroyed.

“Look, man. You can have my bed. You can even have my brother, but this is _my_ coffee,” Dean pointed to the second pot that Sam had started, percolating away beside the sink, “and you can wait.”

Sam watched Nick simmering, eyes narrowed despite the hint of a smile still tugging the edges of his lips. The two other men at the table shared a strange little exchange while Dean sipped on his stolen coffee. Just a little eyebrow raise from one, a half shrug from the other, and they both nodded these little conspiratol nods before Nick got to his feet and went to find himself a new mug.

And though he couldn’t say why, much like being unable to put names to half of this morning’s feeling, Sam didn’t like it. He also didn’t like when Nick passed him, walking around the otherside of the table to sit back in his seat with a fresh and unadulterated cup of coffee. Not that there was anything wrong with Nick’s customarily slow and careful walk, it just bared a side of his neck that showed off a less than subtle bruise. Or, as most people would call such a beautifully purple neck bruise, a hickey.

“Oh, you son of a bitch.” Sam swore a little more loudly than he’d intended.

Wearing such a perfectly innocent expression, Nick hesitated, sort of hovering over his chair.

“What happened to you ‘behaving’ while we were out fishing?”

Blinking owlishly, the man looked around the room. “I… But I did.”

“Jo is nineteen, Nick. _Nineteen_ .” Oh, and it was too early to be this kind of mad. But Jo was like family, they’d grown up together, and he was more than a little protective of her. And even if he’d never specifically stated it, he’d sort of counted on his friend _not_ taking advantage of, and screwing around with, his little sister the moment he’d left the house.

Though it almost spilled his coffee, Nick put his hands up in surrender. “The hell? I never touched her. It never even crossed my damn mind.”

“Ok, so what, you were just necking with...?”

Eyes going a wide, Nick put one hand to the offending mark on his neck, bleeding out sudden guilt. “Not with Jo. Why do you just instantly think I’m feeling up the little kid?”

“Who else could it have been?”

The man turned to Dean like he was expecting to be bailed out, but Sam’s big brother’s eyebrows were high as he said, “Don’t drag me into this.”

Nick thunked his mug onto the table hard enough that coffee sloshed over the edge. “Is that how it’s going to go? You’re just gonna throw me under the bus and act like you had nothing to do with this?”

Those words raked Sam and something bitter caught in his throat. “What’s Dean got to do with it?”

“Look, man.” His brother’s knuckles were a touch white from how tightly he was holding his mug. “It’s not a big deal.”

“We just kissed a little,” Nick seemed to try and explain.

“You and... _Dean_?” Because that seemed to be what the men were trying to tell him, despite the fact that Sam was certain he wasn’t understanding this right.

“No.” Dean laughed a little too loud, a little too offended. “Fuck, Sammy. I like boobs,” and he set down his coffee so he could cup his hands in the air to demonstrate.

It was great having such a classy brother, and Sam hated it almost as much as he hated the weird straw that he’d grasped at. Of course they’d meant Nick and Jo. And somehow, probably over the course of the conversation that Sam had missed out on while he’d been sleeping last night, this little discretion had come to Dean’s attention.

Dean kept talking, even if he didn’t look nearly as mad about all this as he should, squaring his shoulders and glaring up at Nick. “How’s about it’s nobody's goddamn business what you do with your neck and your free time. You’re an adult. Everyone in this house is a fucking adult and allowed to do what they want with whoever they want.” So reasonable, which was rare for Dean. “And we talked about it last night. Jo has a boyfriend, which was news to you, and you’re not the kind of guy who’d go fucking around with someone who’s already taken… right?”

Nick’s eyes were narrowed into slits, hand still covering the incriminating hickey like it was a bullet wound and he was worried about bleeding out. “Damn right I wouldn’t.”

“Then we’re good.” Dean nodded to Nick, then to Sam, “we’re _all_ good,” and back to Nick again. “This doesn’t leave the table. No one gets hurt. We’re all fine. Just don’t try and steal my coffee.”

Turning to Sam, Nick’s expression softened to something close to pleading.

And Sam hated it. A promise not to do it again didn’t undo the action in the first place. The sudden anger hadn’t dissipated, and disappointment came to join in the mess of feelings, most of which Sam was going to do his best to not to find names for. Dean was right though. They were all adults here. Everyone allowed to make their own choices. And if Nick didn’t know that Jo was dating someone, then it wasn’t his fault if she flirted her way past his defences at some point.

Nick slowly took a seat, sitting as far away from both brothers as he could manage, looking irritated as he sipped on his coffee.

Their little pre-breakfast drink was had in relative silence. Sam sifting through anger that he didn’t quite understand, Nick looking for all the world like a man betrayed, and Dean simply not good at mornings.

Naturally he was the first one to break the quiet. “So, Professor, you coming with us to pick out a tree?”

Nick leveled Dean with a look that could have put out the sun. Cold and hard and not at all amused. He said nothing, but really, that glare was enough on its own. And it all seemed a little unfair seeing as Dean had been on his side, had actually came to his defence.

“Well, you coming down to the house with us to see what they’ve got for breakfast?”

After a long stare down, Nick finally said, “Yes.”

“Great,” Dean nodded, putting on a grin that looked like a complete lie. “Sammy, go get your ass dressed and we can help gramps here down the stairs. He’s lookin’ a little worse for wear this morning.”

Sam wasn’t a child. He could tell when he was being told to leave the room so that the ‘grown ups’ could talk. He hated it, and hated them both for a few seconds, but grabbed some clean clothes and went to the bathroom to get dressed and brush his teeth… and listen at the door to what the other men felt was too indelicate for him to hear.

Though it was all done in whispers, Nick’s anger rough voice could easily be heard. “Look I know you’ve still got to be pissed about last night―but that’s cold, making me take the blame for something that I didn’t even get the pleasure of doing.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not ready for the talk that comes along with telling Sammy who you were fuckin’ around with last night.”

Ear pressed to the door, Sam closed his eyes, dreading every bit of possibility in his brother’s simple statement.

“So I just get to be in trouble?” Nick practically whined.

“He’ll get over it. He thinks his friend kissed a little on his baby cousin. That’s all. It’s not the end of the goddamned world.”

Something hit wood, possibly a fist or a mug on the table. “You’re making me lie to him.”

Dean’s laugh was too loud, too wild. “Oh, so you don’t lie either?”

“I’m trying really, really fucking hard not to, ok.”

“So you don’t fool around. You don’t lie. You know what, Professor? You’re a hell of a lot less exciting that you look.”

Whatever Nick’s response was, it was too faint to catch.

“Don’t have to, man.” Dean kept laughing in answer. “But I’ll grow on you. I’m a real charming son of a bitch.”

“No. Your brother is a charming son of a bitch. I’m a regular son of a bitch. You? You’re just a closeted asshole.”

Other things were too soft to reach Sam through the door, and he needed to get dressed any how. He couldn’t spend all morning hoping to hear more of what he wasn’t mean to hear at all. Frustrating as it was bound to be, this all meant that if Sam really wanted clarification then he was going to have to have a possibly uncomfortable conversation with Nick.

It’s not like Sam was stupid. The only people around these parts were his own family. If his friend had been necking with anyone it was a disturbingly small pool of suspects to draw from. For his own sanity, he didn’t want to play Sherlock with this one. No good could come from following the questions rattling around in his head. Still, Sam couldn’t help himself and as he set to brushing his teeth he felt fairly comfortable ruling out either of his parents, as well as his aunt and uncle. Which only left two people. And if it wasn’t Jo, then… well, then Dean’s bristling and want to quickly shut the whole conversation down made a bit more sense.   

But the idea of Dean with a man was sort of insane.

Try as hard as he could, Sam couldn’t get his mind around his overly macho, slightly chauvinistic, jerk of a big brother, fooling around with another guy.

And if he did, Sam couldn’t picture it with someone like Nick.

Dean would need someone... small... and pretty.

And Sam hated his own mind for coming to this conclusion.

It gave him a lot to think about and the more those thoughts started to take root the more that Sam wished he’d never noticed the damn hickey in the first place

Maybe it was best if he followed Dean’s advice and just dropped the whole thing. Everyone involved in the incident had to, by default, be an adult and capable of making their own damn choices and mistakes. And really, it wasn’t any of Sam’s business.

He only wished that he could just let it go as easily as he wanted to.   

The three of them made it down to the house around the time that Ellen and Mary were making breakfast, and it eased part of that tension that Sam was carrying to watch in amusement as Nick was suddenly all easy smiles, sliding in between the two women and taking over the task of cooking bacon.

Is this what had been going on while the rest of them had been gone?

If so, it was unexpectedly domestic.

The blond man fit in like he was just one of the family members, seeing his way around the kitchen like it was his own. Laughing and joking in hushed tones with Aunt Ellen about burning Bobby’s favorite ratty old baseball cap while he was sleeping so she wouldn’t have to look at it anymore, only he wore it to bed so she’d been having a hell of a time getting it away from him. Which only meant more laughing from Nick as the two of them formulated a half ass plan to distract the old man and steal his hat.

The angry went out of Sam, and he wasn’t sure why he’d been hanging so tightly to it.

The family all had breakfast together, all except Jo who was still at work, and then the brothers took Nick along with them into town and then on into the woods to find a proper Christmas tree. Somewhere in there, Sam reminded Nick to call his brother, and from his comfortable seat riding shotgun he listened to the man in the backseat spend about five minutes apologizing over his phone.

“Sounds like someone's in trouble,” Dean whispered a little too gleefully as he too the turn off the main road, driving Ellen’s borrowed Jeep a little less carefully than he’d have driven his own car. But they were going off the main road, up a ways into the hills and even if the Impala could make it, Dean wasn’t going to tie a tree to the top of his precious baby.

Sam shifted, his jacket sliding noisily along the faux leather seat. “His little brother is the doctor that sewed him up last week,” was the whole explanation that he gave and that seemed like more than enough considering that Nick was still back there repeating apologies like a prayer.

“I know I should have called.” Nick sighed for the millionth time, slumping forward against his seat belt so that he could rest his cheek on the back of Sam’s headrest. “Yes. Yes. But I’m _fine…_ well, no. If something had been wrong I still probably wouldn’t have called. Oh my god. Cassy. You’re not my mom. Yes. No. I’m sorry. I- I will. No. _Ugh_. Sam?”

“ _Mmhmh_?” Sam was doing his best not to laugh at his friend who honestly sounded defeated.

“When are we headed back to New York?”

“Did you buy the plane tickets yet?”

“No?”

“Then I don’t know when we’re going home.”

Nick grumbled some colorful words into the headrest before finally saying, “Don’t know the date yet. But I promise that as soon as I book our flight back I’ll let you know… yeah. I mean, if you want to pick us up from the airport I guess… _no_ ? No, I didn’t ask him. You know, that’s not really his kind of thing. I don’t think that… ok. Ok, _fine_. Sam, he wants to talk to you.” A broken man thrust his phone up between the two seats, shaking it at Sam.

Doing his best to keep a straight face, Sam took the offered phone, pressing it to his ear, surprised at how warm it was. “Hello?”

Despite the obvious argument that had been going on, the man on the other end of the line sounded happy, “Hello, Sam.”

“What’s up?” He wasn’t sure how much would have changed from when they’d spoken the night before, but that conversation had been short and with a the very clear goal of making sure that NIck wasn’t going to die.

“There’s a New Year’s party that we’ve all been invited to and I’m worried that if you don’t plan to come then Nick will find an excuse not to come either.”

This was news to Sam. He hadn’t heard a word about any kind of party, but Christmas was in two days and it was possible that the event had slipped Nick’s mind in all the everything else going on. Knowing the man who was hugging the back of his chair though? It had probably been a rather deliberate omission. “Is it another one of those fancy tuxedo kind of parties?”

Dean gave him some very significant side eye while he took the Jeep over the bumpy road and good god, but Sam tried to ignore that heavy gaze.

“Well, yes…” Castiel honestly seemed confused, as if the suggestion that there were other kinds of parties was new to him

“I don’t own a tux.” Sam didn’t even own a tie.

“Oh,” a small silence came over the line, but the other man would not be daunted. “I’m sure that Nick didn’t actually pack one of his own. Well, send me measurements and I’ll have suits ready for both of you.”

Just like that. As if Sam not owning a suit was the only thing standing between him and this New Year’s party.

“I mean… ok?” For whatever reason he just knew that he’d feel bad for telling the other man ‘no thank you’ to the invitation, especially because it seemed like Castiel really wanted to spend time with his older brother, and if Sam could help facilitate some of that important familial bonding that they’d missed out on over the last decade that Nick had been overseas, well, Sam would feel like a jerk for just dismissing the request. “Yeah. We’ll be there. I’ll make sure.”

Grumbles came from the back seat.

“Thank you, Sam,” relief and happiness creeped through the phone, which was an improvement over last night’s conversation. There were a few more pleasantries and Sam passed the phone back to its owner, smiling while he listened to the broken tone in Nick’s voice while he verified the time and place of this party that he’d apparently never intended to go to.

Dean leaned over, raising an eyebrow as he asked rather incredulously, “A tux? Dude, I’m gonna’ need pictures of that one.”

“I don’t plan on taking any,” Sam confessed, wincing as they went over a large pothole and he smacked his head on the Jeep’s roll bar. Rubbing the bump he could already feel forming, he instructed, “You’ll just have to use your imagination.”

Peeking up between the seats, Nick’s face came into view. “Gabe sent me a picture actually. We made it to the third page of the local rag sheets and into a couple gossip blogs.”

The words only half made sense to Sam, and by the baffled expression Dean wore it made even less sense to him. “You guys did what now?”

Nick sank back, only to return with his phone held out for inspection, showing off a picture of Sam and Nick in front of the old theater, arms around one another.

They were driving on an abandoned logging road that, when in use during the summer months, would take them up to some nice camping grounds. There hadn’t been another car in sight for the last fifteen minutes or so, and as such it didn’t make any difference when Dean let the Jeep crawl to a stop so he could look at the phone.

Only a week away, but a very long feeling week, that night at the anniversary dinner came rolling back to Sam. The smells and the sounds and the weird magic that had him feeling like a very misplaced Cinderella for a few hours while he was at a party that he had no business being at, wearing clothes he’d never willingly even try on, enjoying food and drinks that he never in his life could have afforded. It was almost surreal to see a picture of himself tucked so easily against Nick’s side, a little wide eyed, but grinning like he hadn’t just met the man the night before. They look like old friends. Easy and comfortable.

“This the kind of nonsense you’re getting up to out in New York, Sammy?” Not even asking, Dean took the phone, laughing and scrolling to see if there were more pictures to marvel at. “You look like James fuckin’ Bond, if he needed a haircut. Oh! Who’s the redhead?”

Sam looked over to see that there was a second picture, this one a little pixelated, like Gabriel had taken it from off a computer screen. There was Sam, Anna, and Nick, the small woman sandwiched between the two men, not even coming up to either of their shoulders, just glowing between them as she talked about something. It was a very candid shot taken from the front lobby. Sam couldn’t even remember there being people with cameras in there with them. But he’d been rather distracted by the everything else going on.

“That’s his little sister.” He explained, hoping that it would all stop there, but knowing that Dean had no such qualms about family boundaries and proper etiquette.

“And when do I get to meet her?” Dean continued to ogle rather shamelessly.

“Never?” Nick reached up between the seats and took his phone back. “You’re not her type.”

“I think it’s only fair to let her decide that.”

“Well, she doesn’t date assholes.” Nick pointed out rather saltily. “She also doesn’t date _men_. So you’re losing on both fronts there.”

“Hot redheaded lesbian sister?” With a wistful sigh, Dean got the Jeep going again. “Not fair. I got stuck with the Jolly Green Giant here, and you get the Disney princess who likes to touch other Disney princesses. Life is just un-fuckin’-fair.”

It was nice to know where he stood. Sam shook his head and did his best not to smile, because apparently his brother would switch him out in a hot second for a redhead, and that was sort of ok with him, all things considered. In all honesty, Sam would highly consider trading Dean if someone made him the right offer.   

Mostly because they were in the middle of nowhere, and also partially because Dean was a jerk, the Jeep was pulled to a stop just in the middle of the road way. It’s not like there was going to be anyone else driving through, but it still showed off a certain level of cockiness to just block the whole road.

“So… we’re just going to chop down one of these?” The hesitant question drifted up from the backseat.

Dean was already getting out of the Jeep, laughing as he went. “Hell no. These are all too big.”

“They’re tree sized.” Nick complained as he followed stiffly out into the snow. “What’s the difference.”

Sam looked easily over the canvas top to his scowling friend. “Well, it’s got to be small enough to fit in the house…”

He watched as the blond sized up the nearest trees, still with that disapproving expression. “Yeah, I guess that makes sense.”

And he hesitated to ask, as he pulled the ax and the coil of rope from the back, “Do you and your family not do Christmas trees?”

“Mom never liked to let dirty things into the house.” Nick kept on watching the forest like he was expecting it to do a trick.  “A live tree would have qualified as ‘dirty’.”

“It’s _Christmas_ , man,” Dean seemed slightly offended, waving an arm wide at the world as he started to walk. “You’ve got to have a tree. Even just one of those plastic ones.”

“We’d have a little decorative one in the foyer, fake, but pretty real looking I guess…  just so guests could see it and feel festive.” And Nick dug his hands into his pockets as he started to walk away from the car, leading even though he obviously had no idea where they were going. “Or… you know, whatever people are supposed to feel when they see trees covered in lights.”

Dean mouthed the word ‘ _foyer?’_ to Sam with this utterly baffled expression before he started to follow the blonde man through the snow.

“Don’t get me wrong. We still celebrated holidays like normal people… just not with a dirty tree in the house.” He reached out, smacking at a bough of a tree as they walked past, knocking a wet slap of snow down to the ground. “Won’t it have bugs, and... and squirrels in it if we just take it from out here?”

Casting at Sam another look of ‘what the hell is wrong with your friend’, Dean shook his head. “Nah. It’s winter. Everything’s hibernating.”

Nick called over his shoulder. “I can feel the two of you back there looking at me like I’m weird, and I’m not.”

Sam tried not to laugh when Dean looked back at him with an expression that said without a doubt that he considered Nick _very_ weird.

It took them nearly half an hour of walking through the snow for his big brother to find a tree that was ‘perfect’. After all, whatever they brought home would be under close scrutiny by their parents who had never considered this a task that their boys could manage without supervision. And even though Sam considered it a weighty task, he was certain that they’d passed at least eight trees that would have been just as good.

“Look at her,” Dean beamed, grinning as he held his arms wide like he meant to hug the stout tree. “She’s perfect.”

A cuckle rumbled out of Nick, so soft it could hardly be heard by Sam standing beside him. “Yes. Perfect. So we’ll cut _her_ down and kill her. This is a tradition that makes perfect sense.” The last sentence whispered to himself.

Sam shrugged, smiling and handing the ax over to his brother to do the honors. Despite how this morning had started off, this now all felt good and normal and nice. Watching his brother merrily hacking away at the trunk of a tree, standing beside Nick who was overseeing the whole thing with as much bemusement as a few days ago when Sam had been splitting wood. Apparently manual labor was entertaining.

Somewhere past the halfway point, Sam was passed the ax, just so that he could say that he’d helped out―or at least that’s what Dean told him as he stepped aside. It’s how they’d always done it, with the exception that Dad usually attempted to pick out the best tree only to defer to Mom’s better judgement, and then the boys did the chopping. It was a good system. It had always worked for them.

Shrugging out of his jacket to have full mobility of his shoulders, Sam took the ax and got to work. It was only when the last _crack_ resonated through the forest and their little tree cantered sideways like a drunk, did he look over to see Nick and Dean standing close enough to talk in whispers. Sam felt the smile he didn’t even know he’d had fading quickly.

“Hey, you two wanna’ stop flirting an’ help me get the tree back to the car?”

With a lip curled in disgust, Dean came over to help tie the rope around the lower half of the tree so that they could drag it along. “The more I talk to him the more I’m sure that he’s your damn problem, Sammy.”

And that non-clarifying statement helped Sam remember his smile. Whatever his brother and Nick had been whispering about had apparently been upsetting, or at very least frustratingly unproductive, if Dean’s continued grumbling was any indication. Unproductive, non-flirting, made Sam happy and he didn’t care why.

“You wanna’ give us a hand, Luci?”

“Doctor’s note,” Nick sang, unhelpful, and it was for the best. For as many things as Castiel’s note _didn’t_ say that Sam had been adding at his own discretion, it had been overly clear on the fact that Nick wasn’t allowed to lift anything over five pounds. The tree definitely qualified as too heavy to mess with and it was nice to see the man being remotely responsible for himself for once.

“ _Luci_?” Dean laughed, surprised by the nickname. “Yeah, he looks like a Luci.”

“Yeah, well, better to look like a _Luci_ than like a jackass… or a coward who’s―”

“I will punch you right in those stitches, pretty boy.” Dean hissed. “I swear to god. I’ve got no problems hurting a cripple.”

Sam was left to stand there and stare between the other two and their lunatic conversation. “Is… is there something I should know about?”  

“Yes.”

“No.”

Nick and Dean spoke in unison, and Sam narrowed his eyes.

The ride back home was… quiet.

And when the parents and his aunt and uncle came to inspect their fresh tree it was easy enough for Sam to put on a smile and laugh and pretend like he hadn’t spent the last hour trying to come up with the most efficient way to beat an answer out of one of the other men.

None of his business.

It was none of his business.

And he _needed_ to know.

It felt like a living thing inside of him, clawing and gnawing and just picking away at him.

Dean ended up being the first one that he could get alone. Nick had left to take a shower, complaining that the little bit of helping he’d done to decorate had left his hands sticky with sap and stinking like a tree… whatever that meant.

With nothing good to do with his hands, Sam was sitting on the back of the couch that faced the little kitchen, watching his brother moving around, pouring two shot glasses of whiskey before placing the bottle back on top of the fridge.

“You, uh, still think he’s a good guy?” Sam asked, uncertain, as he took one of the miniature glasses from his brother.

Tossing back his own alcohol, Dean sucked noisily on his teeth. “Who?”

Sam nodded towards the closed bathroom door.

Grumbling and going back to the bottle to refill his glass, Dean eventually shrugged, this violent jerk of his shoulders. “He’s… fuck, Sam. Yeah. He’s… he’s still a good guy.”

Sam rolled his untasted drink between his hands, using both thumbs to cover the whole rim, thinking and fidgeting. “You _were_ threatening him earlier today.”

“I threaten everyone, man.” Dean tossed back the second drink and squinched his eyes closed for a second, hissing softly. “He’s not special.”

It would be wrong to say that Sam didn’t love that Dean wasn’t lying. He really did threaten _everyone_ he came in contact with, given enough time.

Some people were good at guarding their body language, at keeping all their thoughts private. Dean wasn’t one of those people, or perhaps Sam had just known him for so long that he could read all the little ticks. Dean was running a hand through his hair. Dean was uncomfortable as he repeated himself, “But he’s a good guy.”

“You know, the more you keep saying that? The less sure I am that either of us know what you mean.”

“I mean you could have made worse friends.” Dean shook his head at Sam, at the bathroom door, at himself, just everything. “He’s trying to look out for you. I like that in a person. So sue me.”

And Sam had absolutely no idea how Nick was ‘trying to look out for him’, but he was willing to let that slide. “He is a _little_ weird though, right?”

“Dude! He doesn’t do Christmas trees, he’s got bullet holes and girly tattoos on his chest, he goes to parties that need tuxedos…  he is definitely weird.”

Sam wanted to let out that Nick wrote horror novels and that his family was almost confirmed Russian mafia and that nearly explained part of what was wrong with the man, but really? It would only open this up to more questions from his brother.  Sam didn’t want to deal with those kinds of questions. He wanted answers and he could already tell that Dean wasn’t going to be easily volunteering any. Most nights Sam would be ready and up for the fight, but tonight?

Right now?

Nick was coming out of the bathroom, wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt. That’s all. And it was the first time that Sam had ever seen the other man’s arms; which was a stupid thing to make a note of, but it was there like a full stop in his mind. No long sleeves. No over shirt.

Those tattoos of Nick’s trailed over his shoulders, peeking out along the curve of his biceps, faded flowers that must have been beautiful and bright years ago. There were scars too. Maybe half a dozen small nicks and cuts like white tally marks just tossed haphazardly here and there―and then, spilling down over his left arm, nearly to the elbow were these watermarks, droplets and rivlets woven slick and pink through the flower patterns. It had to be the trailing marks of whatever scar Sam had touched back in the bakery nearly two weeks back. The one that had ‘hurt the worst’. It was much bigger than Sam had thought. Not scary, not deep. They didn’t even really dimple the muscle. But the marks were definitely there, hidden among the flowers, almost like freckles.

Almost.

And Sam lost any desire to stay up needling his brother for information.  

So different than Dean, Nick’s emotions were not broadcast through his movements, he was careful as he walked, still favoring his side, but his face was neutral. When he looked at Sam though there was a quiet sort of expectancy to his eyes and Sam really wished that he knew the other man well enough to know what was wanted of him.

“Got that tree smell off?” He asked because he had to say something, and that felt safe.

A smile edged in as Nick lifted a hand to sniff at his fingers. “Yeah?” And then he offered out that same hand for Sam to inspect.

Declining the once in a lifetime experience, Sam laughed, “You know, I’ll just take your word for it.”

“Your loss,” Nick murmured and simply stole Sam’s drink, tipping it to his lips in one smooth motion.

Startled and then annoyed, Sam grabbed for it back. “You can’t drink.”

“I can too. Just not if I’m taking pills. And I didn’t take any pills.” He only swallowed half the shot worth of amber liquor before passing it back, making a face. “What is with your family and whiskey. Did you sign some sort of brand deal? There are other drinks out there.”

Holding the shot glass once more, Sam wasn’t sure if he wanted to drink it now. Not that he thought Nick had cooties or anything half as stupid. Sharing drinks was just something that he didn’t really do with anyone. Not even Dean. And now he had to hold the damn glass and decide if the possibility of mouth germs was enough to deter him from finishing his own drink.

Glancing up he watched as Nick made a face at Dean, eyebrows raised and tilting his head back towards Sam in a way that said he really didn’t care how obvious the gesture was to anyone else.

Dean scowled, irritation making color creep into his cheeks. “Tomorrow,” he grumbled the stubborn promise before nodding to Sam, “G’night,” and going straight to his room.

“Wow. Can the two of you be any more shady?” Sam wanted to know.

Nick’s chest rose and fell with a deep sigh, his smile strained. “I promised him I’d stay out of it.”

“It?” Which was only more confusing to Sam, who’d become increasingly more suspicious that something unexpected had happened between Nick and Dean―but now suddenly the something that had happened had nothing to do with the blond man and that made it all the more confusing. “What ‘ _it’_?”  

“ _Mon chou_ , if he hasn’t had a long talk with you by the time we’re on that plane back to New York the I promise I’ll spill all the beans.”

This answered none of Sam’s questions, only created more. “Does this ‘it’ have anything to do with this?” He pressed the barrel of a finger pistol into the bruised spot on the long line of Nick’s throat, pulling the trigger and looking expectant.

“No actually,” Nick batted the hand away, eyes bright. “That’s all me and my poor impulse control. Your brother just has this big old elephant in the room that he needs to talk to you about and he’s being a little chickshit.”

Never in his life had Sam ever heard anyone brave or dumb enough to call Dean out like that, and he found himself looking worriedly at the bedroom door, expecting to see his brother come back out any second. “You know, you keep talking to him like that, I’m not going to be able to keep him from breaking your nose or something.”

Making a dismissive noise, Nick walked around the couch and sat down on the fold out mattress. “You know, out of your whole family he’s probably the least intimidating.” He scratched at his jaw, lightly shadowed by stubble because apparently getting cleaned up hadn’t meant shaving too.  “He’s… he reminds me too much of me. He’s all bark and no bite and a hell of a lot of repressed bullshit.”

“He doesn’t repress the bullshit.” Sam insisted. With one last, uncertain look down into the remaining whisky, he tossed it back, set the empty glass on the table. He flicked off the light and made his way through the dark, settling into his own side of the bed, feeling the warmth of the other man laying down beside him. “I’m not at all sure I believe that you’re holding back either.”

“Oh, _mon nounours_ , you have no idea.” The words curling happily out of Nick.

Sam groaned. “I’m already a ‘ _chou_ ’, whatever the hell that is. Do I have to be a nouno… a _nounour_ too?” His mouth wasn’t into making the strange French syllables. There just felt like far too many vowels and he didn’t like it.

The mattress shook slightly and it took Sam a moment to recognise the trembling as caused by Nick doing his best to suppress laughter.

“This right now is another one of those times that I’m going to fantasise about how awesome it would have been to have just left you in that alley.” Sam sighed wistfully, pulling his blanket up to his chest and instantly having regrets because he ran hot and the extra layer was too much. He pushed it back away and crossed his arms over his chest and sighed again.

“It’s cabbage.”

“It’s a what now?”

“ _Mon petit chou_. It means ‘my little cabbage’.” Nick continued to shake with laughter. “It’s just, it’s like calling someone ‘sweetie’ or pumpkin.”

For some reason Sam couldn’t decide if this knowledge was more offensive or funny. “Alright... and so what’s a _‘noonoo’_?”

Nick snorted, taking a few seconds to openly laugh in a way that he usually didn’t. It was so comfortable and warm and nice to hear. “ _Mon nounours_ ,” he corrected so happily. “It means teddy bear.”

“Or you could, I don’t know, just call me Sam.”

“Well, that’s not fun.”

“We can stick with the nicknames if you like, _Daddy_.”

Beside him, Nick stilled, swallowing loudly. “You know, that might not be the best thing to call me when your brother can probably hear us through the door.”

And that was a fair argument, but Sam also knew that the name made Nick slightly uncomfortable, so with a grin that he knew couldn’t be seen in the dark he agreed, “Ok, Daddy. I’ll try and be a little more discreet.”

“You’re such a goddamned smartass.” Nick grumbled, rolling uneasily onto his side, his voice a bit softer and closer.

They hadn’t said good night, but the room grew comfortably quiet, soft muffled music coming from Dean’s room because apparently not everyone was quite ready for bed just yet. Sam expected to hear the breathing beside him level out, but after what felt like half an hour it was kind of obvious that they were both still awake.

“Hey… Daddy?” Sam barely whispered the question, not wanting to wake the other man just in case he’d misjudged the sounds of sleeping. He couldn’t help but grin when he heard the annoyed grunt of an answer. “While we were gone fishing… did you ever finish that assessment of yours?”

“ _Assessment_?” Nick’s voice was gravely, apparently he’d been closer to sleep than Sam had been guessing.

“That… kissability assessment that apparently everyone does with everyone else’s family when they meet them.” Sam still had his doubts that any rational human did any such ranking, but he also was starting to doubt his own motives for even asking the question in the first place.

“Honey, I figured that all out the first day here.” Nick yawned, not expanding, just burrowing deeper into his blankets and making a small content noise.

“Yeah?”

“It’s not the kind of thing you drag out.” Another yawn. “Never overthink it.”

“And?” Sam wasn’t so sure on dragging this out. The answer couldn’t be good anyway it went, but it might shed a little light on whatever had happened last night while he’d been sleeping, and the piece of mind _might_ be worth it.  

“It was always you.” Nick sort of laughed in the kind of way that really, _really_ made Sam wish that he could see the other man’s face in the darkness. “Meeting your folks didn’t change that. I mean, I’ve already lied to my family to the point that they think I have, so if nothing else, it would be nice to make myself a bit less of a liar. I’d sleep better at night.”

Sam felt warm in a way that he didn’t like. “I’m pretty sure that this point they think we’ve done a lot more than kiss.”

“Well, that’s their problem.” That laugh was still there as an undertone, making the words all a bit strange sounding. “I only assessed for the possible quality of a kiss and a way of getting slightly out of this fuckin’ hole I’ve been digging for myself.”

Yeah… Sam had agreed to go to that New Year’s party. It meant one more night of pretending that he and Nick were an item. They’d pulled it off once before, and he sort of had something like confidence in himself that they’d be able to do it again. He really hadn’t considered when talking to Castiel that he’d sort of thrown Nick under a bus. One more family gathering, one more social event, one more night pretending to be gay. Really though, that last one seemed to be the least problematic for the other man.  

“How ‘bout you, kiddo?”

The nicknames kept coming and Sam hated each one of them a little more than the last. He wished he’d never complained about being a cabbage. “What about me?”

“If you had to pick a Novak to kiss, which one would be the least awful?”

“Definitely Anna.”

“ _Definitely_?” Nick dug in, suddenly sounding far more awake. “Lesbian. She’d never go for it.”

“And I’m straight―but you still picked me.” Sam wanted some consistency in these rules.

“You’re not playing the game right,” came the annoyed complaint in the darkness.

Bearing his teeth up at the ceiling, Sam tried to think of the correct answer. “Michael.”

Silence answered him.

“He _is_ the more attractive twin.” Sam felt like he’d won, if the stunned quiet was any indicator, but still he felt a need to tack on, “and he looked like the kind of guy who’d know what to do with his mouth.”

It took nearly too long for an answer, but finally Nick laughed. “God, but I’d love to see the look on his face if he heard you say that.”

Sam snorted softly, because that wasn’t going to happen ever. He was only teasing his friend and had zero inclination to come into any kind of contact with Nick’s brother.

Any of his brothers.

Any guys at all.

“You’re wrong though.” Nick interrupted that line of thought.

“How can I be wrong? It’s an opinion.”

“He’s not the more attractive twin. That’s fact. Not opinion.”

Sam laughed, pressing the back of a hand to his mouth to muffle the surprised sound.

“He’s got these gross long toes,” Nick pointed out with the kind of spite that only a brother could. “And weirdly small ears. And if you think _my_ scars are bad, you should see him without a shirt on.”

“I never said I thought your scars were bad.”

Nick got quiet again, missing a beat before adding, “even if you didn’t say it outloud―”

Sam reached over, lightly smacking the other man with the back of a hand, aiming for his chest and hitting a shoulder. “Don’t try and tell me what I’m thinking.”

A hand fit over Sam’s, not holding, just this sort of soothing weight to make Sam stop his incessant light smacks.

“I’m… I’m curious about them.” Sam admitted, not pulling away. Laying there letting Nick’s hand rest heavy against his own. “I don’t ask when I want to because it seems like you’re… like you’re uncomfortable when you catch me looking at them.”

“I’m more uncomfortable when you touch them.”

Sam sort of wished that he could come to his own defence and say that he hadn’t been repeatedly and deliberately touching them. “Ok, I…” Sam pulled away, sitting up and fumbling around on the side table looking for his phone. It was still new to him, he hadn’t really had time to fool around with it since they picked it up this morning, but he found the flashlight app and shone it onto his right arm. “See this here?”

Beside him, Nick had pushed himself up on his elbows, squinting in the sudden light. “Yeah?”

“I dropped an alternator on my wrist when I eight, a bit of the fan cut me and Dean and I freaked out because he’d been told I was too little to help work on the car.  We tried to hide it. Put bandaids on it. I never got stitches, but it bled like crazy. It ended up getting infected. And I had to take some crazy antibiotics. Mom and Dad were so mad”

Nick reached between them, sliding two fingers down the old, wonky shaped scar.

“And this one,” Sam shone the light up, having to close one eye as he accidently flashed it into his own face. Clumsily he felt along the underside of his chin, feeling the rough little patch. “Hit a rock on my bike and went flying. Tore open my chin, my palms, my knees… I remember sitting at the kitchen table afterwards while my mom picked gravel out of my face.”

And it was a little more personal than poking at his wrist, Nick reached out and ran a thumb along the underside of Sam’s chin. Sam kind of liked it though, but he’d like anything that assured him that Nick was feeling even the slightest bit less self conscious about his own scars.

He set his phone down, light up, casting tall, odd shadows along the ceiling. With both hands free, he pulled up his own shirt, leaning far to one side to try and show off his newest and (in his own opinion) most impressive scar, even though it had been shallow and was already fading. “I got this one trying to break up a fight this last summer, right after I started working at the bar.”

Nick’s hand was right there, using his thumb and forefinger to trace the eight inch, nearly paper thin scar. “Cut with a bottle?”

“Oh yeah. It didn’t really hurt, but it’s kind of cool. My first fight scar.”

With a soft chuckle, Nick sat up a bit more, ducking his head to look more closely. “You hoping to add more to the collection later on?”   

Sam was nearly doubled over sideways to give the man more access to the glorified scratch. “I’m not planning to, but hey, it makes me look more tough?”

“That’s only going to work if you’re showing it off, and that might be weird to do during business hours.”

He tried not to squirm as Nick’s fingers slid too close towards his armpit and the last bits of ticklishness left over from childhood made themselves known. Closing one eye and holding his breath, but it wasn’t enough. Nick had caught the little flinch and Nick was not a man to show mercy when he sensed weakness.

“No,” Sam said with the firmest sort of warning he could manage and he tried to ignore the tickling, the feather light strokes creeping up and down his ribs, doing his damndest to not laugh or smile or scoot away in self defence.

There was so much challenge in Nick’s voice as he asked, “Or?”

Spine tight, leaning as far away as he could manage, Sam swallowed down a laugh. “Or I’ll stop you.”

“Oh, big talk for a kid who won’t let me walk up the damn stairs on my own because you’re _soo_ worried about me getting hurt.” His short nails making very rapid, complicated patterns too close to Sam’s unprotected armpit. “What can you possibly do to me, _mon petit chou_?”

An incriminating laugh escaped Sam’s chest with this high, tight sound and it gave him away. Nick seized hold of that faltering and tried to throw Sam down. And in an instant, Sam’s survival instincts flipped on like a switch. Too many years of thrashing around with his own big brother, muscle memory screaming at him to protect the most ticklish soft spots that young Dean had always taken such glee in finding. It was probably nearly fifteen years since anyone had tickled Sam, but he remembered exactly how to fight against it.   

He tangled his legs with Nick’s, tripping him up, pinning him down, trying to catch those quick hands of his and keep them far away from his ribs and sides where they had been doing so much damage. It almost worked, he almost was able to trap the older man against the bed, but he hadn’t anticipated that Nick had brothers of his own and knew what he was doing.  

Sam didn’t know how it happend. One moment he’d caught those menacing hands in his own, and was forcing them up above Nick’s head, but Nick winced and Sam realised that Castiel would possibly kill him for re-injuring his big brother.

“Oh shit, I―” and then the next moment he was flat on his back, chest to chest with Nick, the older man laying on top of him.

Grinning.

Nick was grinning.

Even with the phone having been lost in the blankets and the room once again dark, the grin was obvious.

“Did… did I hurt you?” Sam was trying to catch his breath, confused as to how he got in this position, but also very worried.

Nick bowed his head, his hair tickling Sam’s cheek.

Dread creeping in, Sam worried even more at the lack of verbal communication. What if Nick pulled his stitches while they were rolling around? What if he was bleeding?

Then he realised that Nick was laughing, these soft little puffs of air ghosting along Sam’s throat.

“So, you’re not hurt?”

“Fuck yeah I am. It hurts like hell.” Nick chuckled the words into Sam’s ear.

And Sam swallowed thickly as goosebumps broke out along his skin. Oh, this was a very weird kind of feeling, trapped under the weight of the other man, overly aware of each sharp breath and shift as they settled against each other.  

“This was the dumbest thing I’ve done in weeks,” the laughter continued as he pressed his cheek against Sam’s, sucking in a harsh breath between the mirth. “But I won. You wiggly little son of a bitch. I won”

Sam started laughing too, but it sounded strained to his ears. Nick’s hair was still slightly damp from his shower, and his uneven breaths were hot along his skin. “Yeah. I let you win.”

“Let me?” Nick pushed himself up on his elbows, just this dark menace looming over Sam. “You _let me_? Oh, fuck you. You didn’t let me do anything. I’m just better at this than you. Stronger.”

More pitiful was closer to the truth. If Sam hadn’t realised what a bad idea this was then he would have easily pinned Nick down and saved himself from the relentless tickles. He was positive. Nick was just the sort to take advantage of the hesitation.

Nick fought dirty and that shouldn’t have come as any surprise.

“You wanna let me up?” Sam asked, overly aware of his own voice and how loud it might be seeing as his mouth was right next to the other man’s ear. “We can maybe turn a light on and check your stitches? Make sure you’re ok?”

“I want you to admit that I’m better at this.” Nick grumbled. “And _then_ I let you up.”

God. It was like wrestling with Dean.

“No.” Sam grit his teeth. “You can take your competitive big brother bull shit and get off me.”

Nick leaned back in, his nose almost touching Sam’s. “Make me?”

And Sam would have, if only Dean’s door hadn’t opened right then, throwing a bar of blindingly light over the couch bed.

Dean didn’t say a word. Just stood there, looking at the two idiots with this unreadable expression.

Sam could only look at his brother sideways, focusing as best as he could with one eye, because turning his head when he was nose to nose with Nick felt like a dangerous plan.

Slowly, Dean closed his bedroom door again without a single word.

After a horribly silent moment, Nick started laughing again.

He was still so close to Sam. Too close. Even in the dark Sam couldn’t do anything but feel overly aware of how close they were. Strange impulses stilled him, made his chest tight, made him bite his lip, and choke on the sudden pounding in his chest.

Mercifully, Nick sat up, letting go of Sam’s arm and taking a moment to press his hands to his face, swallowing down those wild and deep giggles. “You, uh... you want me to go explain to Dean what’s going on?”

It was a nice offer, and if Sam wasn’t so focused on the way that one of Nick’s knees was pressed into his inner thigh, he might have taken him up on it. Now, if this was a woman sitting over one of his legs, in bed, in a dark room, laughing happily, Sam would have slid his hands along her thighs. He would have sat up and kissed her and laughed with her, and it all would have been uncomplicated and a very nice way to spend a cold winter evening.

Except this wasn’t a woman.

It was Nick.

And the fact that Sam felt a need to remind himself of this fact made his head hurt.

He wished he could blame the drink he’d had earlier, but a half swallow of whiskey was hardly enough of a scapegoat.

As roughly as he could while still being careful of the man’s injuries, Sam shoved Nick off. He got out of bed and turned on the light, distressed to see the way that Nick was just laying there so ruffled and happy and still laughing.

“You alright…?” Sam bit back the impulse to use a nickname.

“Always, always, always,” before he could even be asked, Nick pulled up his shirt enough to show the clean little square of gauze taped to his side.

Sam came over and examined the injury, peeling back the tape and looking long and hard though he didn’t actually know what he was really looking for.

“Am I good to go, doc?” Nick’s smile was all kinds of crooked, quiet, unsaid things written over his face.

Self consciously, Sam smoothed the gauze back into place. “Yep. All stitches still present and accounted for.”

“Aw, you’d have made Cassy proud.” Nick pushed his shirt down, folding his hands over his stomach. “Except for you starting a fight with me. He’d be so disappointed in you.”    

“I― I didn’t start that.” Sam didn’t know why he even tried to argue. He should have known better by now.

Nick drew a knee up, lying diagonally across the bed on top of the mess of blankets, looking so comfortable. So pleased with himself.  “I remember it differently.”

“You… remember it _differently_?” Sam considered taking one of the pillows and holding it over Nick’s stupidly smug face.

Showing his teeth, Nick grinned.

Frustrated, Sam went and hit the light, crawling back into bed and shoving Nick over until the man was properly on his own side once more.

“Hey?”

Irritated as he untangled his blanket in the dark, Sam sighed, “What now?”

“Thank you.”

And that stopped Sam, sitting there, holding his blanket like a shield. “For…?”

“For sharing.”

“Y-yeah… I mean. It’s... whatever. You know?” He laid down, not really sure what else to say.

“It can be ‘whatever’ for you.” Nick shifted beside him, probably cocooning himself in blankets of his own. “But for me it’s…it’s ... thanks.”

Sam smiled, sort of pleased with himself, and sort of still very confused by the mixed up thoughts he was desperately shoving down into the back of his mind.

“Give me your hand?”

The request had only one possible outcome, and Sam found he was weirdly ok with it; reaching out to the space between them expectantly, relaxing when the other man’s hand closed around his own. He knew he was going to be introduced to one of Nick’s scars, but he hadn’t expected it to be on his head.

Nick guided Sam’s fingers to a small mess of soft scar tissue up near the crown of his head. “My brother hit me with a slingshot,” came the explanation. “I was four. I don’t even really remember it. Dad said that we’d been chucking things at each other and Mikey ran out of things to shoot, so he just threw the whole slingshot. It was the first time I ever got stitches. First time we found out that I suck at clotting.”

Sam curled his fingers through Nick’s mess of hair, thumbing that small scar, smiling even if he didn’t know why.

If there was a good time to take your hand out of your friend’s hair, Sam didn't know when it was, though he was fairly certain that he’d missed the window. And Nick wasn’t complaining. Nick was quiet and peaceful, gently holding to Sam’s wrist, fingers lightly pressed along his pulse point.  

“Nick?” Sam smiled at the content _hum_ he got in answer. “Hey, um, know it’s none of my business, but―” it wouldn’t hurt to ask. It wouldn’t. “Who were you with last night?”

Shifting quietly, leaning into Sam’s hand, he offered up nothing.

Sam waited, figuring that Nick would answer or he wouldn’t. Either way he wasn’t going to be able to force the matter with someone this stubborn.  

“I stayed up talking with your brother.”

Sam knew that. He didn’t care about the talking, he’d sort that part out with Dean tomorrow apparently. What he cared about was, “But who were you necking with?”

“Does it matter?”

“It shouldn’t. But it does.” He might have pulled on Nick’s hair just a bit, enough to hear the other man’s breath hitch. “Can you at least swear to me that it wasn’t my mom?”

“On my life, I swear I haven’t seduced Mary,” Nick exhaled the words a little tightly, adding on, “or John.”

“ _What_?”

Nick laughed softly, pleased at his superior ability to freak Sam out with minimal words. And with not many more options left to him considering their position, Sam was left with more hair pulling. It made him feel better, though the stifled sound that came from the other man made him feel… confused.

I’m, _hmm_ , I’m keeping you as my first and only choice, Sammich.” Nick’s voice was strange. “But maybe I’ve just got a little Daddy kink like you do. Don’t go getting all judgy.”

Disgusted, Sam shoved the other man’s head, wanting to laugh, but too disturbed at the idea of Nick with his Dad to do anything other than recoil. “Come on, man. They’re my parents. How’d you feel if I talked about kissing your dad?”

“Dad? Well, I mean, he’d treat you right.” Nick laughed, curling up tightly, his knees knocking into Sam’s side.

“There is something seriously wrong with you.” Sam slapped at Nick’s legs, but didn’t have room to retreat so he eventually had to just accept them. “You do know that right?”

“It’s joking. _I’m_ joking.”

“You’re gross.”

“I am.”

“It’s my dad.”

“Is that somehow worse than joking about kissing your mom?”

Sam took the smallest moment to consider that question. “Yes?”

“And if I told you it was me and Dean last night, is that better or worse than if it was your dad?”

It reminded Sam of those eye tests he’d had as a kid to see if he needed glasses. _Better or worse? One or two?_ But it was all only worse and worse. “I guess still Dad?”

“Is John always going to win this one?”

It startled Sam to realise that he’d left a hand on Nick’s knee, and he didn’t want to draw attention to it, so he left it there. “Yeah… does this mean he’s going to be your new go to when you’re trying to piss me off?”

“God no. Your father could actually break me. Have you seen his arms?”

Sam had no idea what John’s arms had to do with anything, but he was content to know that joking about hitting on his dad wouldn’t become a new thing. “You know, if I found out that you’ve at some point killed a man I don’t know if I’d be all that surprised―and I really don’t want to know if you have,” he was quick to qualify that. “But I kind of like the fact that, as low key concerning as you are when it comes to your sworded backstory, you’re still afraid of my dad.”

Laughing softly, Nick scooted measurably closer, shifting in a way that made Sam’s hand slip in a direction that he hadn’t anticipated.

It gave Sam a couple more of those mixed sorts of feelings.

Nick didn’t seem to notice, but it was possible that he couldn’t feel the touch through his pile of blankets. “Look, I’ve got a type. And that type is … oh, it’s honestly whatever looks the most like it’s going to wreck me― but your daddy falls outside of my bell curve.”

Nearly midnight by now, it was too late to try and analyze whatever nonsense being whispered to him like gentle pillow talk. He chose to simply take comfort in the fact that Nick had basically promised not to hit on his dad, or joke about hitting on his dad.

It said something about their relationship that Sam was satisfied with such a simple thing that would normally be a given, even taken for granted, with any other friend he’d ever had.

Nick was different.

And as he started to fall asleep, still holding Nick’s leg, Sam thought that maybe that difference wasn’t a bad thing.  

  
  



	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, friends <3  
> have some more Nick on this lovely Tuesday morning. Just a short little chapter, and there might be another chapter up before the end of this week. I know that any chapter is a good chapter to have because you didn't have it before? but there's this over awareness of wordcount in my head and I can't help but feel guilty for short chapters TT

The sun seemed to have come up at some point. Little cracks of light reaching in around the edges of the blankets. There was no way to tell what time it was, though Nick’s stomach seemed to think that it might be almost breakfast. He stayed firmly nested beneath his heavy blankets. 

The room was cold and for some asinine reason he’d thought that it would be a good plan to sleep in a t-shirt last night. With the now obvious drawback of being stupidly cold, going without the armor of his long sleeves had been a willing action only for the benefit of a certain dimple cheeked giant. 

Simply put, Nick had messed up yesterday morning, and he didn’t know how else to apologise other than baring his weak points like a dog would bare his throat. 

He’d screwed up more than normal. He’d inadvertently taken Dean’s side instead of Sam’s. Accepting blame for something he didn’t do, just to help some ungrateful son of a bitch cling to a heterosexual lie for a little longer. So now Nick was a liar too. A liar who’d apparently been out seducing a kid who was hardly six months out of High School. If Dean wasn’t such a sorry bastard with the very same fear of his own brother that Nick had once had, then Nick would have given the other man just enough rope to hang himself with and then sat back to watch the fun.

But Dean had gone and said somethings that Nick hadn’t expected to hear and the little bit left in him that could still pass for a good person demanded giving the idiot a chance to fix this himself. 

In hindsight, sticking up for Dean was probably not one of Nick’s best plans.

Actually, it was almost as awful of a plan as sleeping with the lack of proper clothing, even if just for one night.

Nick was just chalk full of bad plans and worse ones―and at this point in his life it didn’t even feel like a surprise any more.  

This morning, with those slivers of citrine daylight stinging his eyes, he actively made the decision to stay completely beneath the blankets, buried in the cave of warmth. Because what was one more mistake at this point? 

Though, it wasn’t just the cold that kept him in full hibernation mode. More importantly than the winter chill was the way that Sam was curled around him. 

Sam’s chin resting on top of his head, one heavy arm pulled around his shoulders, knees tucked up behind Nick’s. Holding him tight as a teddy bear. Tight like he was worried that Nick might fall off the bed. Tight like he’d intended for them to end up just this way―even if Sam was still breathing with those slow, unaware kinds of breaths that said he was unconscious and had probably zero idea of how they’d slept.    

Nick was unaccustomed to being the little spoon. Hell, he was unaccustomed to waking up with anyone at all in bed beside him. It’s not that he didn’t enjoy pleasant company from time to time, but he always kicked them out before the question of ‘what would you like for breakfast’ ever came up. 

Mornings like this were something that he hadn’t let happen in a very, very long time.

And he was an idiot for that.

Mornings like this were amazing.

But they couldn’t last for forever.

The exact moment that Sam woke up was very easy to pinpoint. 

_ Inhale. Exhale. Sharper inhale. _ Followed by a softly hissed, “Aw, crap.”

It was such a tame set of words for such a strong feeling.

Nick smiled, but also stayed as still as humanly possible, hoping not to alert the other man to the fact that he was also awake. Hoping to drag this little moment out as long as he could.

It must have worked at least a little, because the younger man didn’t try to untangle himself immediately. Kind of the opposite really. In their compromising yet comfortable position, Sam had one hand trapped nearly beneath Nick’s shoulder, just enough wiggle room for him to trace the edge of his sleeve with a thumb. Such a casual little  _ pet-pet _ that Nick couldn’t help but remember last night when Sam had tangled those long fingers into his hair. It was all… slightly condescending, being stroked like an animal, but at the same time incredibly relaxing.

He didn’t know how to admit that he enjoyed it, other than simply  _ not _ smacking Sam’s hands away. 

And not arguing was probably a clear enough sign of acceptance at this point. 

He’d let it happen last night without a fight. Sam had shared scars of his own and then he’d listened to Nick in that calm and quiet way he had, playing with his hair and pointedly not being bothered by mentions of the life that Nick used to live. Sam was a unique creature.

Which was as frustrating as it was magical, seeing that sharing stories from his childhood had always been Nick’s preferred tactic to keep a safe distance from other humans. Nothing seemed to surprise Sam though, he always just listened and accepted each story like he’d simply always known how each one would end. 

It was no wonder that Nick had developed a rather damning little bit of a crush on the stupid kid, with his stupid charm, and his stupid sarcasm, and his stupid dimples.

Nick wasn’t a cuddler. 

And even if Sam was, the older man was more willing to blame himself for instigating this mess, undoubtedly being the one to curl close to the human space heater during the night―and for some beautiful reason, in the light of day, the kid didn’t seem to mind.

Behind him, Sam shifted, slowly pulling his arm away. Gentle,  _ so _ gentle like he was terrified of waking Nick, but not before pressing his face into his hair. It was a strange gesture. Sighing warmly against the crown of Nick’s head, before silently crawling off the bed, and promptly tripping over something.  

“God damn it,” came the soft curse as various small things hit the floor.

With a snerk, Nick gave up pretending to be asleep. Rolling over, he looked back at the the man behind him, standing over the mess he’d made like Godzilla surveying the remnants of Tokyo.

After a few seconds of silently collecting what looked like the TV remote, their cell phones, and an empty glass, Sam glanced up and his eyes went round. “Sorry,” and he definitely sounded like it.  “Didn’t mean to wake you.”

Nick hummed dismissively, peering out from his mountain of blankets, trying not to smile.

“You sleep ok?”

“Cradled against that big strong chest of yours―who wouldn’t?” Nick teased, taking such guilty pleasure in the way that Sam’s cheeks darkened. 

“You know what?” Sam ran hands through his sleep mussed hair and it all fell into place like a magic trick, removing half of that wild look, but his eyes stayed a little too wide and worried, his cheeks too pink. “I like you better when you’re asleep.” 

“I like me better when I’m sleeping too.”

“I, um,” Sam glanced across the room, somewhere over Nick’s shoulder, probably at his brother’s bedroom. “I promised Ellen that I’d go into town with her today for a little last minute shopping. If I leave you here for a couple hours unsupervised am I going to regret it?”

Playing it cool was an option that Nick chose not to take. “If you’re asking will you come back to me and your brother going at it like dogs and will you be scarred for life? No. We’ll be fine. I mean, he likes breasts, I like people who don’t have their head completely up their own ass… it would never work out between us.”

Sam glowered. “Didn’t we talk about this last night? That you weren’t going to joke about screwing my family members?”

“Just your dad.”

“Can we please add Dean to that list?”

Normally Nick would dig in. Taking that small request as a fault in the foundations and a good place to start tearing it all down. Not in a self sabotaging way. This strange friendship that they’d developed made the whole trip out to the states feel entirely worth it. Nick wanted to keep him and damn the consequences. But Sam was a right shoe in Nick’s collection of lefts. The kid didn’t belong. He didn’t fit in with anything else―and it meant that Nick had to adjust. To change. 

“Yeah. Alright.” He rolled onto his back, reaching one hand out of the safe warmth of the blanket to scratch his jaw. “An just assuming that you’d like your uncle on that list?”

The face that Sam made showed that he’d never in his life considered that his uncle Bobby might be attractive to someone. “Can we just make this a list that encompases my whole family?”

“Boring.” Nick complained, yawning and tucking his arm back into the warm. “Whose ass am I supposed to gaze lecherously at until we get back to New York and civilisation?” 

Sighing, and not even dignifying the question with a response, Sam went into the kitchen. “Coffee?”

“Will you bring it to me in bed?” Nick tried to sit up enough to watch the kid scooting things around in the kitchen. 

Raising an eyebrow, Sam set out three mugs. “You’re not getting up?”

“I’m less likely to get in trouble if I stay right here. Don’t you think?” Nick wouldn’t mind a little time to himself. He had his laptop, and probably a hundred emails to answer by now. It was Christmas eve and he could even call a few family members if he was really hard up for a way to waste his time. 

“Anything that helps keep you out trouble.” Sam seemed only too eager to agree. Before he left to do some incredibly last minute Christmasy type shopping with his Aunt, he handed Nick a lovingly made cup of the blackest coffee. Then he stood there. Just looking down at the couch bed, wearing the smallest frown. 

There were far too many reasons for the disapproving look and Nick squirmed under the scrutiny, hiding it behind a smile. “You thinking you might want to join me?” He patted the mattress beside him. “I’ll scoot over,”

“Are we ok?”

Which wasn’t want Nick had been expecting to hear, and he wasn’t sure how to answer beyond a hesitant, “yeah. Course we are.”

“I’m still mad about you necking with…  _ Jo _ ,” his deepening frown made it clear that he knew that wasn’t true, “even if it’s none of my business, and I’m mad at whatever the hell that Dean isn’t telling me now...” Sam ran a hand through his hair and over the back of his neck, looking at nothing in particular. “Dean’s not good at talking about important things.  And I’m assuming that he was drinking and told you something that he didn’t mean to― and you’re not shaking your head so I’m probably right.”

He wasn’t  _ wrong _ and Nick hated that, when they’d been out in the snow, he’d promised Dean he’d stay out of this. “Like I said, if he chickens out, I’ll tell you everything I know. But this is a family thing between you two and you’re better off hearing it from him, not me.”

Dean had left his own apartment too damn early for Sam to corner him and talk, and now the kid looked like he planned to needle Nick for information. “He’s not… it’s not cancer or something, right?”

Startled, Nick shook his head.  He hadn’t anticipated Sam’s leap in logic. “No. Nothing like that. He’s just regular stupid, not dying,” he promised too quickly.

And Sam visibly relaxed, mumbling to himself as he went for his coat, “probably went and got someone pregnant. At least I’ll get to be an uncle out of it.”

Which was also wrong, but sort of cute in a way that Nick couldn’t bring himself to correct. He waved a small goodbye to Sam, promising once again that he’d behave himself. 

As mornings went, the first half was rather boring. Checking emails from work colleagues, students, and his editor, then purchasing two plane tickets back to New York, playing a couple losing games of solitaire, and poking at part of the story draft he’d been pointedly ignoring for a few weeks now. It was very nearly productive and he felt relieved when his cell phone went off.  His side protested him falling sideways on the bed as he reached for the end table where Sam had left his phone. 

Hoping it wasn’t going to be another lecture like yesterday, he answered the call. “Hey, Cassy. Everything ok?”

“It’s Christmas eve. Shouldn’t you start by saying ‘Happy Christmas’?”

Nick frowned at his phone, because ‘normal’ for his little brother wasn’t normal for most other humans and it still threw Nick off sometimes. “Merry  _ Whatever _ . What’s up?”

“You were apologising too much yesterday, I forgot to tell you that you’re going to need to get your stitches out.” Castiel was straight to the point when he wanted to be. “You can go to a hospital out there, or a med clinic. They can do it for you.”

The idea was less than appealing. “I’ll just wait until I get back to New York. You can do it for me?” 

“The longer you leave them in, the harder it will be to take them out,” his little brother lectured like the doctor he was. “I was looking again at the pictures that Sam sent me. You’ve done a very good job at healing,” which sounded only slightly condescending. “They need to come out sooner rather than later.”

“When I get back to New York.”

“And when is that?”

“Day after tomorrow?” 

Castiel made a sound over the phone, the kind of sound that didn’t have a name but said all sorts of annoyance. “The longer you leave them in then the harder they will be to take out.”

“Alright. Thank you, doctor. I’ll keep that in mind.”

“You’re just going to wait and have me do it, aren’t you?”

Nick rubbed one eye, feeling tired and he didn’t know why. “No. I’ll take care of it.”

“Good.” The smile in his voice was too easy to hear, it meant that he really had forgotten just how much trouble Nick really was. 

They spoke for a few more minutes about nothing important, and then Cassy was saying how he needed to get going, apparently there was a thing at Mom and Dad’s and he didn’t want to be late. Nick told his brother to enjoy himself and calmly hung up his phone, tossing it onto the bed and debating with himself how spiteful he was feeling. 

And there was no malice in Castiel.

None at all.

Nick knew that. But he also just really didn’t like the reminder that the whole of his family was happily gathering without him―even though he’d been invited every year for the last decade to join the lot of them for the holidays. It didn’t count. He’d disowned himself and every now and then he regretted that choice and felt a need to do something stupid as a result. 

Dean came back into the apartment to find Nick in the kitchen.  

Shrugging out of his coat and looking around the room seemingly to check for his brother, Dean looked curious. “Making lunch?” The hope in his voice was unmasked.  

“Nope,” Nick popped the p sound and looked down into the pot of boiling water.

With a small smile, Dean edged closer. “Pie?”

Nick had decided that on a scale to of one to ten, his affection for Dean had come to rest around a solid and lowly three, but still, the hope made him smile. He leaned back from the stove, making room for the other man to inspect.  “It’s  _ not  _ pie.”

Dean peered into the pot, squinting slightly before stepping back. “Why are you cooking scissors?”

“And tweezers.” Nick pointed out, turning off the stove and scooting the pot to a back burner to wait for the boiling to calm down. 

Apparently this was a weird enough situation that it left the older Winchester brother without a comeback for nearly a minute. “ _ Why _ ?” He finally asked again.

“I needed to clean them before pulling my stitches,” was the simple answer. Nick knew how to do this. He’d done it once before to one of the older scars on his right leg. The internet was a wealth of information for people who didn’t care if their own actions were incredibly ill thought out.  

“We’ve got a twenty-four hour med clinic in town.” Dean hadn’t taken his eyes off the pot since learning what was in it. “I can drive you.”

“Don’t like hospitals and don’t like clinics.” Nick carefully poured hot water into the sink. “You have to wait forever to see someone, and they’ve all got that smell. I hate that hospital smell. Besides, my brother,  _ the doctor, _ says that they need to come out. And I told him I’d take them out.” This was not at all what Castiel had intended, and Nick knew it. He’d be fine and he’d save his brother the effort of suture removal in a few days, plus the added bonus of seeing Cassy furious at Nick for following (but not following) his orders.  

“You, um,” Dean shook his head, leaning back against the counter and crossing his arms over his chest. “You want some help?”

“No. I’ve done this before.”

“Can I watch?”

The question caught Nick off guard and despite how much he knew better, he let his mouth run, “You like to watch?”

A startled laugh came out of Dean, and when Nick looked up he saw the slightest bit of color on the other man’s cheeks. 

“S-speaking of watching,” the man seemed to be fighting to regain his composure. “What were you and my ‘incredibly straight’ brother doing last night?”

“Tickle fight.” Nick wasn’t going to lie, especially not when the truth was so stupid sounding.

Dean didn’t look like he believed that for a second, arms staying firmly crossed over his chest. “Tickle fight?”

“Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it,” Nick carefully pulled the scissors and tweezers from the bottom of the pot and set them to dry on the paper towel that he’d laid out. He was aware that whatever sterilization that he’d managed was sort of undermined by the action, but he also didn’t have gloves, so… it was more for peace of mind than anything else. “Your brother thinks you knocked a girl up, and that’s what you’re avoiding telling him.”

Something between a laugh and a choked sound came out of Dean. “He tell you that?”

“No. I can just read minds.” Annoyed, Nick sat on the edge of the table. “You going to talk to him today?”

“Why does it matter to you?”

“Because even if I haven’t known your brother all that long I’m pretty damn sure I know him well enough to tell that he’d like to know you’re in love with a guy sometime before he gets a wedding invitation.” 

Color came back to Dean’s cheeks, but it seemed more angry than embarrassed this time around. “I never said that―”

“Look, a  _ straight  _ guy might fool around with another guy once or twice, he might experiment a little when he’s drunk and pretend that it didn’t happen, but he doesn’t go celibate for some distantly far and away man for  _ months _ . If you didn’t have some strong feelings for this guy you’d have broken it off a long time back, or at least had some good and convenient sex with someone here without your guy ever knowing about it. What they don’t do is wait around and pine for months.”

Dean was clenching his jaw, little hollow points in his cheeks as he pointedly said nothing in his own defence.

“And that’s all something that your very open, very kind hearted brother will be rather hurt that you didn’t tell him about before you introduce him to his new brother in law.” Nick didn’t like being the voice of reason, but these were all words that he’d really wished someone would have taken his confused and angry sixteen year old self aside and explained. It was penance to give the advice now, making some balance between himself and the universe.

You’re allowed to have feelings for whoever you get feelings for, Nick strongly believed that the human heart would always do as it wanted without any logic or hope for saving itself. But in any last ditch effort of self preservation, whatever emotional rose garden was growing needed to be shown and shared. It wasn’t healthy to keep strong feelings buried and hidden. That particular brand of stupid had a tendency to come out at bad times and in bad places, and the next thing you know you’re seventeen and having a fight with your brother Gabriel because you missed his soccer game on account of you were having sex with his best friend Balthazar. Or you take your older brother’s girlfriend to a fashion show like he asked you to because he got called in unexpectedly to work, and then you’re seeing her every morning for coffee because she’s funny, and sweet, and beautiful in that girl next door kind of way, and then the next thing you know your brother hates you because his perfect girlfriend is leaving him for you… or other non specific sorts of situations.

It had taken Nick fucking years to realize just how much trouble a man could make for himself by keeping these sorts of strong feelings from people that he was supposed to be able to trust. 

“Your brother talks about you like you’re his favorite superhero.” Nick looked at this scruffy man across from him and really didn’t get it. “Don’t disappoint your Sam by keeping something this big from him. He will figure it out. They always figure it out. And when he does he will be pissed. Brothers suck like that.”

“Yeah, they do.” That angry mask broke and Dean looked irritated but accepting. “Sammy said you’ve got some brothers of your own?”

“Three of ‘em. And they all suck in their own unique way.” Nick tapped the back of a finger against the scissors to test if they’d cooled enough. 

“And one of ‘ems a twin?”

For some reason Nick felt a little charmed to realised how much Sam had shared about him. “Not identical.”

Dean sort of nodded, quietly sizing Nick up in a way that he shouldn’t. 

“Don’t.” Was all that Nick felt a need to say. Warning, because they weren’t going to have a relapse of two nights ago. “I’m… I’m going to get these stitches out. You wanna’ go find something else to do other than stand there and leer?”

“ _ Leer _ ?” Dean’s nose wrinkled as he repeated the word, and it was hard to tell if he found it offensive, funny, or just didn’t know what it meant. “Dude. This is my kitchen. I can do whatever I want in here.”

Nick respected the stubbornness and the ‘go fuck yourself’ attitude, just about as much as he hated the idea of having the man watch him work. “You going to keep your hands to yourself, cowboy?”

“Look, two nights ago, that was a moment of alcohol fueled weakness, not my normal.” Dean managed to look disinterested, at least passably. “You’re not my type.”  

“Good.” Half turning away, he pulled up his shirt and promptly realised it wasn’t going to stay where he needed it to on its own. Irritated, he pulled his t-shirt off and instantly curled forward, wincing at the cold. He’d just need to be quick and then he could go find one of his nice long sleeve shirts to hide in for the rest of the day. 

Dean was watching him, but without the leer this time. All kinds of curious. 

If two nights ago Nick hadn’t been laid out on the man’s couch getting poked at by Sam, mostly bare chested already, he wouldn’t be able to do it now. Dean had already seen most of it, and he (much like his brother) had been weirdly unbothered. It went a long way to help push down that self conscious recoil. Dean was also a cheating son of a bitch, which meant he was off the menu and Nick cared a lot less what the man might think of all the old scars.  

“Alright. So what is Dean’s type?” Nick was slightly curious, and he knew that the distraction would be nice while he proceeded to lightly hurt himself.

“My type?” Dean seemed slightly distracted himself, head tilted as he watched Nick carefully start to snip away at the little row of stitches. “Tight ass, nice breasts.”

“You telling me that your long distant boy toy has a tight ass and nice breasts?” The cutting was the easy part, each stitch severed right below the careful knot. Even with the awkward angle, he managed the cuts without lightly stabbing himself with the point of the scissors. And he knew Cassy would be mad at him later, but he was actually kind of good at this.

“No.” A little laugh made its way out of Dean. “He’s… he’s got dark hair and the fuckin’ most beautiful blue eyes.”

“And his ass?” Nick set aside the scissors and grabbed up the tweezers. This was the part that would be a problem, grasping the edges of those tiny threads and pulling steadily so that they wouldn’t tugg at the overly tender skin.

Dean seemed to be weighing his answer before finally saying with a laugh through his nose, “It’s kinda’ cute I guess.”

“Cute?” The word was funnier than it should have been. 

“You know… cute,” apparently Dean was a little less articulate than his brother. “He’s cute.”

Nick was imaging the sort of man that could be adorable enough to seduce away, emotionally and physically, someone like Dean. The guy must have been aggressively cute. Possibly sort of feminine―though that didn’t explain why Nick had been a good surrogate the other night. Who knew. Maybe Dean was just that hard up for a lay that he’d go for someone who was the fundamental opposite of ‘cute’.

“Aw, so he’s stupidly  _ cute,  _ and a big tough guy like you never stood a chance.”

“Yeah, you’re one to talk. Having tickle fights with my  _ adorable  _ little brother.”

Nick looked up from his tedious work. “What’s between Sam and I is entirely platonic. But your brother is aggressively adorable. Like a puppy.” He’d be lying if he said anything else. Sighing and returning to those last few stitches, feeling the nauseating tug of something slipping through his skin.  “And no. I never stood a chance.” 

  
  
  
  



	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> is it wrong how much it's bothering me that this chapter has a word count of 9990? I really, really feel a need to now add 9 more words to make it a more visually pleasing word count. Am I the odd one out who likes repetitive numbers over rounded ones?
> 
> aside from the weird numbers XD I've been looking forward to sharing this chapter for so long. Here, have a mess. Everyone is now mad at everyone else and it's my favorite.

If Sam had been worried about taking Nick home to meet his family, he was terrified to take the man to Midnight Mass. Every year Sam and his family became properly religious for a whole hour. Just one. It was a nice arrangement that he’d never once second guessed, but Nick just didn’t seem like the sort of person who could sit through a whole sermon without making whoever brought him have some strong regrets.

And it was actually intimidating just how well behaved and respectful the man was for that hour. Sam actually had to check a few times to make sure that he hadn’t fallen asleep.  Not that Nick wasn’t allowed to sleep, he’d have fit in perfectly well with John or Bobby, whose occasional snores caused their wives to give them sharp jabs back to wakefulness. 

During the closing hymn Sam couldn’t help but lean into the other man, knocking knuckles against his elbow. “Hey.”

Nick looked up from the song book that they were sharing, his mouth moving along with the words that he wasn’t audibly singing. 

“You still awake, old man?”

His shoulders jostled in silent laughter. 

Sam grinned, pleased with the response, even though he could easily see the want for sleep shadowing the other man’s eyes. He knew he probably looked about the same. Staying up until one in the morning, even on Christmas, was a task that became a little more challenging each year.

Like he was worried that Sam might not know how to read music, Nick tapped a finger at the start of verse two, just so helpfully letting Sam know where he should also be following along and pretending to sing.

“I will if you will,” Sam promised, keeping his words in rhythm to the tune being played on the pipe organ. Sioux Falls was not a big town, and it seemed most of the people interested in attending Mass had done it at the eight o’clock session. Sam’s family took up a whole row, but other than them there were roughly thirty other people in the whole congregation, the chapel less than a third full. 

Nick smiled sideways, his words nearly easy to miss. “I’ll sing as loud as you do.”

Even though it was Christmas, and his parents and cousin were notably singing along with the rest of the congregation, it felt weird to sing in public. Sam was always more of a singing in the shower, or singing in the car with his brother, type of person. But he swallowed that down and picked up somewhere in the middle of O’ Come All Ye Faithful. 

Beside him, raising voice to match Sam’s volume, Nick sang too. Only he sang in French. Like a jerk.

Sam could sort of ignore it, but from the corner of his eye he saw his brother and his cousin both take notice. Dean got over it real quick, keeping one arm abound their mom’s shoulders, eyes on their shared hymnal even if he wasn’t even pretending to sing. Jo looked utterly charmed. 

Instantly annoyed, Sam leaned hard into Nick, almost touching cheek to cheek, “Stop it.” 

Nick grinned and kept on singing in that soft way that made Jo look like she’d just discovered her first boy band. Oblivious to his own personal fan girl, Nick lightly butted his head into Sam’s, smiling. Still singing. He didn’t really have a voice for it―in the same way that Sam was also better off not singing. Neither of them would make babies cry or anything, but no one would be asking them for an encore either. 

There was one last prayer and then everyone stood to leave. 

With a wistful look back, Jo left their bench to go say hi to a few friends of hers; other girls around her own age that hugged and laughed and sent covert glances back towards Nick. 

“What did I tell you about being so damn charming all the time?” Sam whispered, nudging his friend once again.

That smile was still there, this charming boyish curl just on the edges of his mouth. “What did I do?”

Sam was tempted to ask the man if he only sang in French, because the only other time he could remember hearing Nick singing had been back in New York, in his apartment, far too early in the the morning. Instead of asking a question that was bound to only have a stupid answer, he let it go. “That wasn’t all too weird for you?”

Nick looked around the little chapel, “I was raised very Catholic. This is sort of nostalgic in a way.”

The church was Episcopalian, but that had never really meant anything to Sam, seeing as he wasn’t a regular visitor. Though he did wonder how different the whole sermon was from what Nick must have been used to. He opened his mouth to say something, but the heavy smack on his back seemed to knock the words right out of him. 

Dean propped an elbow up on Sam’s shoulder, doing that annoying big brother thing that he was so incredibly good at. “I don’t know about you, but I could kill a man for a brownie and some ice cream right now.”

Anyone else and Sam might have asked them if they were high, but when the two of them had been kids Mom took them to church on Easter mornings, bribing them with brownies and ice cream as a reward for behaving and sitting still for the whole sermon. Apparently it had become some pavlovian response in his big brother. Church meant dessert. 

“How’s about it,  _ Luci _ ?” Dean rested his chin against Sam’s shoulder, barely able to look at the other man for the sharp upturned angle he’d put his own head at. “Make me brownies.”

“We are in a church, so I can’t say what I’d really like to,” Nick’s grin was wild and wide, this violent flash of teeth, “but let’s just say we can summarize it with a  _ No _ .”

“Come on. You bake like the cute little housewife we all know you are deep down inside, I’ll sit and have a nice talk with Sammy, we’ll all eat brownies, and Merry Christmas to us.”

Being Christmas Eve there had been a lot of things going on today to take Sam’s mind off the fact that Dean might soon be a dad, or god only knew what his big brother had gotten himself up to since Sam last came out to visit. And Dean had never in his life been good at talking about things. He was the sort of guy who would have been very willing to never acknowledge that he had emotions, or ever talk about them, or ever listen to someone else talk about theirs. But something was going on. Something that was a big deal. And if all it took to get that story out of Dean was a pan of brownies? Well, then... 

“Please?” He turned to Nick and gave his best puppy eyes. 

Which had the same effect on the blonde man as it had on nearly everyone else. He looked stunned, then confused, then he gave in. 

Ingredients were stolen from the main house, Dean doing the dirty work of collecting whatever Nick deemed necessary. Sam stood in the doorway to the kitchen and listened to them quietly arguing. He didn’t need to watch them fight over whether or not there was a way to make bourbon brownies. Sam chose to lean against the door frame and look at the unlit Christmas tree in the front room. They’d done good picking it out. A nice little tree with tiny glinting ornaments in the dark of room. Decorating with his family was always his favorite tradition, and having Nick there hadn’t really changed that feeling. 

Though he tried hard not to dwell on the future, Sam knew that he’d miss Nick when they got back to New York and weren’t tied at the hip. It’s not like they were best friends, and they didn’t know each other all that well, seeing as most things between them still came as a surprise. But Sam liked the surprise. He liked just how wonderfully strange Nick still was after two weeks. Sam liked the utterly charmed look that Nick still got every time Sam teased him or bossed him around. It was a strange friendship that they’d built, but a good one. One that Sam didn’t want to have to say goodbye to when it was time for Nick to go back home. 

“Then can you make it with extra chocolate chips or something?” Dean whined, obviously losing whatever flavor fight was going on.

Sam looked over in time to watch Nick slap a whole bag of chocolate chips out of Dean’s hands. Luckily it was a new bag and still sealed, so when it hit the floor it was only with a dull  _ smack _ , and not an awful spill of chocolate. 

Both men in the kitchen looked overly startled and it was obvious that Nick hadn’t meant to hit the bag as hard as he did. Dean broke first and the sound the blonde made in answer was strangled. The two did a good job at keeping their laughter down, trying not to disrupt all the older folks who has all gone off to bed. Nick had to use the counter to support himself, his shoulders shaking silently while Dean pressed a wrist to his mouth, his eyes so bright, snickering softly.     

There was nothing but warm feelings and frustration in Sam for these idiots. He didn’t want to have to tell either of them goodbye. Not Dean in two days, and not Nick in a week. Why couldn’t Christmas break just last forever?

Jo slid up beside Sam, grinning. “So... brownies.”

He pulled an arm around her shoulder, loving how their heights had changed over the years to let her fit so easily against his side. “Don’t you need to head to bed?”

She slipped her arm about his waist, close and comfortable like they’d always been. “Not until I’ve had a brownie.”

“But if you don’t go to sleep than how will Santa come and bring you presents?” 

Laughing, she put her cheek against his chest, smiling up at him. “If I don’t get a brownie tonight Dean is going to eat them all.”

“You’ve had brownies before. You’re not missing anything.”

“Nick’s brownies anything like his apple pie?”

Sam had hopes. 

He understood her gentle insistence. That pie had been like a religious experience. But he also knew that Dean was one hundred percent less likely to talk if about whatever was going on if Jo was with them. 

Then again, they could give her a brownie and send her on her way―no harm done.

Talking could happen afterwards. 

“You can keep Dean company while I help Nick.” Sam decided. Better for him to be in Nick’s way than for Jo. She’d enjoy it far too much. 

Not that she didn’t look to be rather content back up in Dean’s apartment, legs curled under her where she sat at the table explaining her friend Ashley’s car problems to Dean, accompanied with sound effects and hand gestures. 

Sam stood at the counter, eyeing all the ingredients with some reluctance. “Ok, so what do I do?”

Raising an eyebrow, Nick had already started to measure out flour, following a recipe he’d pulled up on his phone. “You ever made brownies from scratch?”

From scratch? No. Sam had never used a box mix either. He didn’t bake.  

Nick smiled at whatever mixture of confused panic passed over Sam’s face and he handed over a wooden spoon.  “Then you can be in charge of stirring and I’ll worry about the rest.” 

It was a level of responsibility that Sam felt comfortable with, aggressively stirring after each new ingredient was added. 

“Now, I’m not saying that you were planning to,” Nick stood close enough that their arms occasionally touched, sort of hovering as he supervised, “but if you could not mention me baking for your brother to  _ my _ brothers, I’d appreciate that.”

“They can’t know about the brownies?”

“Or the pie.”

Sam chuckled. “Because?”

“Because,” Nick broke eggs with a single hand, twisting each one between his fingers with some skill, “they’ll all think I went soft.”

Sam laughed again, not at all sure if this was a legitimate concern or joking. 

“And don’t get me wrong, I definitely have.” Nick glanced up, a self deprecating hint of a smile curling the edge of his mouth. “But I spent so long refusing to cook for anyone… I wouldn’t even cook for Lilith. I don’t want Mike getting ideas about why I’d be cooking for you.”

The stirring slowed as Sam wracked his mind for the name, trying to figure if ‘Lilith’ had ever been mentioned before. It wasn’t familiar and he had no good guesses. But he lowered his voice, doing his best to not be overheard by the two people behind him at the table. “Wouldn’t Mike getting ‘the wrong idea’ be sort of ideal for… for everything?”

Nick’s smile got a bit rough on the edges. “I do like fuckin’ with him, but it’s not really something that we need to―”

“Hey,” Jo seemed to have missed their quiet whispering, interrupting rather obliviously. “How long are those going to need to bake?”

“About an hour.” Nick’s little frown in Sam’s direction looked an awful lot like he wasn’t done with what he’d been saying. 

“A whole hour?” Not missing a beat, Dean grunted in dissapointment, getting up from the table and pulling his half empty bottle of whiskey from the top of the fridge. “How will we pass the time?”

Jo ginned, showing for just a moment that she was still a kid deep down inside. “We could play truth or dare.”

“Oh,” Dean teased as he pulled down four glasses. “And then we can talk about boys, do our nails, maybe braid Sam’s hair...”

Sam stabbed at the brownie batter with his spoon, not nearly as amused by the suggestion as Nick’s snickers indicated  _ he  _ was.

“We’re not a bunch of eleven year old girls at a sleepover.” Dean lectured as he poured. “We’re  _ not  _ playing truth or dare.”

Annoyance was thick in Jo’s short grunt of an answer. 

Beside him, Sam watched the oddly protective way that Nick glanced back at the girl, checking on her. “We can play a different drinking game,” he told her. Her specifically. The rest of the room was not consulted.

And she grinned back.

Ignoring the fact that Jo was still two years away from being old enough to legally drink, Sam chose to focus on the protective older brother vibes radiating from the man beside him. It was sweet and uncalled for. Dean always picked on Jo. Jo always gave him hell for it. Jo didn’t need anyone coming to her defense―and Sam didn’t want  _ someone  _ coming to her defense.

“It’s always a good way to waste some time,” Nick nodded to Sam like he noticed the sideways look. “Besides, Christmas isn’t Christmas without liquor.”

“Alright,” Dean took a turn giving an annoyed little grunt, setting the four half filled glasses onto the table. He seemed to be irritated purely for the sake of being irradiated. After all, he’d been pouring the drinks before the suggestion of a drinking game even came up, so it’s not like he was against the idea of alcohol right now. “What did you girls have in mind?”

Nick pulled the bowl of gooey chocolate away from Sam, carefully dumping the batter into a pan. “There’s a game we used to play back in school called ‘the most boring person in the room’―”

“Wow.” Dean laughed, sitting back down in his seat. “That sounds like all kinds of fun, Luci.”

“First off,” tucking the pan into the oven, Nick cleared his throat, “you don’t get to call me that.” He turned around, ignoring the mess on the counter that he’d made in favor of snatching up the batter bowl. “Second, people who interrupt me do not get brownies.” 

Dean snickered and reached for the bowl, only to have his hand slapped away. 

“So,” Nick started back up, guarding his batter bowl as he took a seat at the table beside Jo, an empty chair to his right for Sam to join them. “First person starts with… with saying like ‘I’m the most boring person in the room because,’ and then they say something they’ve never done. Anyone who has done the thing has to take a drink.” 

Dean reached across the table, trying to scrape up some of the brownie batter residue, only to get his hand slapped away again.

“I’ll start. You’ll pick it up real fast,” Nick tucked the bowl against his chest, protectively. “I’m the most boring person in the room because I’ve never been camping in a tent―and I know all you weirdos must have, so you can all take a drink.”

“You’ve  _ never _ been camping?” Chuckling, Sam realised what they were doing and he found he was ok with it, sitting down and sipping just enough whiskey to coat his tongue. 

“I have, just not in a tent. We always stayed in a cabin.” Nick clarified as he dipped a finger into remaining trails of batter and then into his mouth. 

Dean and Jo drank as well, Jo setting her glass down first, and smiling. “Me next?

The group of men shrugged, sort of loosely agreeing to just to take turns in a counterclockwise sort of way around the table.

“So I guess I’m the most boring person in the room because,” Jo looked thoughtful, eyeing these men like she had doubts that there wasn’t a single thing that they might not have tried. “Because I’ve never... been on a boat.”

Amused at how very victorious Jo looked, Sam sighed and took another sip, along with his brother and his friend.

Dean leaned back in his chair, balancing it on two legs, “alright, I’ve never, um, I’ve never taken any kind of music lessons from anyone.”

Shrugging, Sam watched as Nick took a drink and then nudged Jo.

“Oh, that doesn’t count,” she made a face, glanced at Dean and sighed before taking a sip. “Fine.”

And then it was Sam’s turn and he wasn’t sure where to go. He knew so much about his brother that he could really make him an easy victim. He knew almost as much about Jo. It would be almost too simple to intentionally call either of them out.

He thought it might be more diplomatic to not lead with his unfair advantage, seeing as they both had the same sorts over him. “I’ve never been outside of the United States.” 

Nick nodded before taking a drink, and then another finger full of brownie batter.

Surprisingly Jo took a drink too.

And Sam thought he might like this game. He hadn’t been expecting to learn anything new about anyone, and this could be fun. “Where’d you go?”

“Went with some friends up to Montreal last summer for a few days.” Jo smiled around the edge of her glass. “It was awesome. Ten out of ten, would recommend.”  

Nick was working on his brownie goo, which was kind of gross, but he seemed to be enjoying the effort and slow progress. He slipped his finger from his mouth with a small  _ pop _ , hardly pausing before saying, “I’m the most boring person here, because I’ve never shot an animal with a gun.” 

Laughing a little too loud, Dean’s chair legs hit the floor. “Why’d you say it like that? You mean you’ve shot animals with things other than guns… like a bow and arrow?”

Pausing with a finger halfway to his mouth, Nick made a bit of a grumble low in his throat before finally saying, “I’ve shot plenty of guns, just not at any animals.”

Which was an answer that Sam didn’t like. He still had to drink, because he’d been hunting many times, same as his brother, same as his cousin; and he really, really didn’t like the way that Nick innocently went back to finger feeding himself chocolate and raw egg like it was perfectly normal.

Jo tapped her fingers against the table very close to Nick’s elbow. “If you’re feeling up to it before you leave, you can come hunting with us. Good deer hunting in these parts this time of year.”

With a small smile, Nick shook his head. “Thank you, but I promised myself no more guns unless it was for self defence. So unless you think those deer plan to be breaking into the house and getting violent, then I’ll have to pass.”

Sam sort of liked the way that Nick always managed to tell what seemed like the truth without ever using enough words, just sort of glazing over events and subjects. It was a skill.

Curious, Jo tilted her head, puzzling over the response. “Alright… well, I’m going to be the most boring person now because… well, because _ I’ve  _ never been arrested.” Like a challenge, like she thought that she’d made sense of Nick. 

Sam watched in amusement as older man raised one eyebrow and tilted his glass towards Jo before taking a small sip. And then Sam remember to take a drink of his own.

A sharp laugh barked out of Nick and he turned sideways in his chair to examine Sam for the first time. “Really?”

Ignored, Dean took a drink of his own, smiling quietly.

“We spent our summers out here and the town’s sheriff is a friend of Bobby’s. I always felt like she brought us into the police station as often as she did just on Bobby’s request. Keeping us out of trouble, making sure we never had too much fun.”

“Being  _ brought _ into a police station by a friend of your uncle’s isn’t quite the same as getting properly arrested.” Nick pointed out, almost like he was disappointed.

“There was a proper arrest for us both at least twice.” Dean butted in, defensive of the quality of trouble that the two brothers had made. “Hunting without a permit, which is a fancy way for saying were were teenagers in the woods shooting trees and birds and―and trespassing on private property, because we broke into an empty house and tried to build a secret fort.”

“Oh,” Nick held his hands up in mocking fear, “we got ourselves a couple of bad asses here, Jo.”

Jo doubled over with quiet laughter. 

“Alright, smartass,” the edges of Dean’s mouth had gone tight as he fought back laughter of his own. “What’ve you got?”

Cocky, so proud of himself, Nick leaned back in his chair, still keeping the batter bowl close to his chest. “You have the time to hear them all in order, or you want a highlight reel?”

“Yeah, ok. Who’s the  _ badass  _ now?” That laughter curled out of Dean, so mocking―and inwardly Sam braced himself, because  _ he _ knew something more about Nick than the other two obviously did, and what he knew was more than enough to realise that whatever Nick might say was going to be bad.

“Eighteen arrests, no convictions.” The blonde man stated so proudly, in exactly the way that no one should be. “My personal favorites have been impersonating a police officer, stealing a car, stealing a  _ police  _ car, possession of narcotics, and assaulting a police officer.” 

Jo laughed again with a tinge of uncertainty like she hopped that Nick was joking, but wasn’t sure. 

“Impersonating a police officer?” Seemed to be the only one that Dean had questions about.

“What can I say?” Nick grinned with too much teeth. “I look damn good in a uniform.”

“Wow,” Dena laughed again, amused by all of this. “That’s some shady ass friend you’ve got there, Sammy.”

“Thank you.” Nick bowed in his chair. “I do try.”

“Alright, alright. I’ve got one.” Dean looked overly ready for this one, too eager. “I’m going to go ahead and be boring here because I’ve never tried drugs.”

Beside him, Nick blurted a short laugh, not at all bothered to be called out like that. 

Reluctantly, Sam took a small drink, sort of hoping not to be noticed, but Dean was as observant as always. 

“Sammy!” His big brother sounded more like he  _ wanted _ to be offended and worried, but was having a hard time getting such feelings past his laughter. 

“I- I tried some pot at a party a few months back.”

“Not...  _ the devil’s weed _ .” Dean was getting too much of a kick out of this. “I’m telling Mom that her little baby boy’s been smoking those jaz cigarettes.”

“Come on. It was probably just oregano.” Sam sighed, sinking low in his seat at the amused scrutiny.

“Does pot even count as a drug anymore?” Jo looked from Sam to Dean, only to get a sharp nod from the older brother. Sighing too, she took a small drink. “Ok, but it’s  _ just _ pot.”

“Still.” Dan pointed out, looking far too superior on his side of the table.

“You know what?” Sam was feeling a little spiteful. “I’m the most boring person here because I’ve never had sex in a car.”

Dean and Jo both took drinks.

Nick continued to eat his brownie batter, though he seemed to notice that Sam was looking sideways at him, expectant. “ _ Mon chou _ , I don’t wear short sleeves in public, you honestly think I’m going to fuck out in the open where anyone can just walk by and take a look?” 

That was a fair argument, but also gave Sam some unexpected imagery, which wasn’t at all helped by the way that Nick dipped a finger into his mouth once more, still making too much eye contact. 

Sam didn’t like how, for the first time since meeting him, he noticed Nick’s lips. It was a stupid thing to suddenly become aware of. 

“And adding to that,” Nick spoke slowly, tapping the tip of his tongue with the pad of a finger in a thoughtful sort of way. “I will keep on being the most boring person here, because I’ve never had sex anywhere public, like at school, or a park, or an elevator, or at a party, or just… just anywhere exciting.”

Raising his glass halfway to his mouth, Dean hesitated and asked, “Do I have to take a drink for every one of those I’ve done?” 

“Leave that up to your discretion,” Nick dipped his head, obviously not knowing that Dean had no discretion to speak of.

On the opposite side of the table from Sam, Jo took a little drink, and her cheeks were notably pink―but it was hard to tell if it was from the alcohol or the change in topic. “Alright, um, so I’m just going to say I’m boring because I’ve never made out with a girl.”

All the men laughed, and all the men drank. Jo looked proud of herself.

Dean seemed to be thinking his turn over, playing with his glass and looking long and hard at Jo like he had every intention of wrecking his little cousin. “I’ve never snuck a boy into my room while my parents were out of the house for the weekend.”

“Oh come on.” Jo grumbled and took another drink, but her smile hadn’t waivered.

Grinning a shit eating grin, Dean looked at Sam, all kinds of expectations clear on his face. 

Sam was supposed to get Jo. He was supposed to dig in and single her out. Only he couldn't think of anything particularly good and just short of shrugged before offering, “Well, I guess I’m boring because I’ve never slept with a guy.”

“Wow, thanks, Sam.” She said dryly and took another drink. It wasn’t a surprise.

What Sam hadn’t been expecting was for Nick to shrug one shoulder and take a drink of his own.

And Sam very suddenly had some questions come to mind that left him as soon as they got there, because Dean also took a drink, though he looked like he’d rather not, keeping the movement as small and subtle as possible. 

Jo made this soft squeak of surprise towards Nick, but her eyes went wide as she turned to Dean and his almost guilty little sip. “Oh shit. No way.”

Sam had no words. It’s not like he was grossed out by this revelation. There was nearly nothing that Dean could do that Sam wouldn’t sigh over, shake his head and simply accept. It was just… stunning. “Really?”

“Story time, story time,” Jo thunked her fist rhythmically on the table top.  

Dean was biting his lip and looking at nothing for a long quiet moment, and then his eyes darted up to Nick for a beat.

Seeing the glance and understanding its significance were two different things to Sam. 

He didn’t get what the look meant, but that didn’t stop him from jumping to all kinds of conclusions. All he could think was NO. 

There was no way that what he suddenly thought happened had happened two nights back. 

There was no way. 

Dean and Nick wouldn’t have. 

They  _ couldn’t _ . 

He didn’t know why the idea of Dean sleeping with a random guy was actually not that big of a deal, but the idea of that random guy being Nick made Sam want to start yelling at them both. He wanted to throw things. The thought made his chest tight, and he hated it. He hated every part of― 

Dean started kind of reluctantly, squaring his shoulders and talking to his half full glass, “This last summer,” a deep sigh rattled out of him, and he looked up at Sam with a tight smile. “Last summer I’m headed out towards Montana for this kick ass concert. I saw a BMW on the side of the road, just throwing up smoke, and this skinny dude out there with the hood up. I swear to god, he was trying to exorcise the damn thing. I pulled over to help, at least to see if he needed me to call AAA. And he… I don’t know. He was just so weird.” Dean’s smile softened at the memory, and it was sort of cute. 

“I drove him to the nearest town, which was far enough for him because he had this medical convention he was headed to out there. He bought me dinner as thanks for the ride. We… we ended up staying out almost the whole damn night just talking. He’s a doctor, which is,” he made a weak noise before shaking his head, “it’s fuckin’ hot, is what it is. And he’s from New York, and that’s where my little brother lives and… we couldn’t run out of things to talk about. I don’t know, everything else just kind of happened. I was taking him back to the hotel he was staying at for his conference thing. I pulled into the parking lot and he asked if he could give me a kiss goodnight, and I thought ‘fuck it. When’s the next time a real life Doctor Sexy is going to lean in like this?’ You know? And if I didn’t like it then I didn’t have to do it again. So  _ carpe diem  _ and all that crap. Next thing I know we’re in the backseat and,” Dean shrugged, letting his short but eventful story taper off.  

It was weird how relieved Sam felt that his big brother had simply given into the weird ‘hot doctor’ fetish that he’d always sort of low key had. And as much of a gratification seeking heathen as Dean was, it was actually a little surprising that it had taken this long for him to end up naked with a guy.

“Wow.” Jo was the first to speak up. “A doctor?”

“Med student. Almost a doctor.” Dean was relaxing in degrees. He looked very nearly happy. Relieved. 

And that’s when Sam realized that this here was the thing that his brother had not been telling him. Really though, who his brother ended up in bed (or the back seat of a car) with, was none of Sam’s business. But the ‘who’ part of this, not the where, seemed to be something that Dean thought was a really big deal. 

Wanting to show his support and whatever the hell else his brother needed right then, Sam smiled and shrugged.

Like a firework, Dean grinned, the last strings holding him up were cut, and he slumped. Then he shrugged in the exact same way that he always did when the subject of him having sex came up. No apology, just shameless contentment with the memory of his own actions.  

It was a big exchange in their simple traded shrugs and smiles, and Sam hardly noticed the way that Nick had taken out his cell phone as was furiously texting beside him.

He did notice how Nick raised his phone and took a picture of Dean sitting across from him. 

Jo and Dean took notice of this little strangeness as well.

Laughing, Dean turned his head three quarters and raised an eyebrow, pulling off this perfect Blue Steel. “Did you at least get my good side?” 

Nick said nothing. 

Nick was texting.

It was a small invasion of privacy, but Sam had never seen someone texting quite so aggressively, and he couldn’t help but lean in. Castiel’s name was at the top of the message exchange and that was enough for the youngest Winchester to trigger a wild connection in his mind. 

He’d actually heard a very similar story to Dean’s once before, the night of Nick’s family dinner. But there was no way. No way that this doctor on his way to a medical conference could be the same person as Nick’s little brother who had gotten a ride, and  _ a ride _ , from a nice stranger this past summer. 

A new text popped up. Castiel had sent the words  **‘yes. Nick what are you doing there with him??’**

And Sam’s eyes flicked to the box right above it, the picture of an oblivious Dean and Nick’s question of  **‘this the guy you’ve been skyping with?’**

There wasn’t enough time to read any other part of the exchange because Nick was tossing his phone down on the table. 

Months back, Sam had spend nearly an hour on the phone with Dean, helping his big brother set up a webcam and a skype account so that they could talk more directly. And Sam had been more than happy to help his computer illiterate brother, because it meant that they could spend more time together even with the thousand miles between them. And a week and a half ago, Sam had stood over Nick, watching Castiel sewing him back together, the doctor complaining about how he’d been in the middle of some sexy internet time with his long distance boyfriend when he got the emergency call. 

To Sam, Dean owning up to one night in the backseat of a car was nowhere in the same realm of confessions as one long term, long distance relationship. The object of Dean’s affections being a man, being Castiel, was actually the least strange part of this whole thing. Dean in any kind of long term relationship was just… it just wasn’t something that happened.

There wasn’t really time to dwell on such a happy little idea though, because Nick was getting out of his seat, rounding the table and punching Dean square in the jaw. 

Normally it would be unheard of for anyone to get the drop on Dean. There was this unspoken truce in his own home that he relied on, that Dean had let lull him into this peaceful, false sense of security.

Stunned, Sam watched his brother hit the floor, the chair clattering loudly, profanities rising up with equal force.

Only once before had Sam been with Nick during a fight, which wasn’t near enough to learn the other man’s tendencies or to form certain expectations for how he prefered to throw down.There was some consistency between that first fight and this one that Sam would file away in case he ever needed the knowledge for later. Apparently Nick liked to throw the first punch and Nick liked to kick his enemies when they were down. 

Nick got one such sharp kick in. Sam could only just make out the beginning of the movement, what with the tabletop being in the way― but it was more than enough. Shaking off the stunned feeling, Sam was rolling out of his chair, hip catching the edge of the table as he rushed to get his arms around Nick’s shoulder, hauling his friend backwards. 

“You  _ fils de pute _ .” The words barley could qualify as a whisper. Nick didn’t seem to notice Sam, pulling against the younger man and straining to get back to Dean. Apparently the more angry he got the softer his voice, which was strange but probably better than yelling. More French was spit out, Nick twisting in Sam’s arms, kicking out in Dean’s direction and only hitting air. 

“Nick. Stop.” Even after their little wrestle the night before, Sam hadn’t really come to terms with the fact that Nick was significantly stronger than he looked like he’d be, and it was taking everything that the younger man had to keep his friend from heel kicking Dean in the face.  

“He’s not here  _ so fuck him _ ? So Fuck Him?” Nick remembered how to use English, but his words didn’t make much sense. 

Dean was staggering up to his knees, grabbing the counter for support, hand to his stomach while he tried to catch the breath that had been knocked out of him. Red smeared along the edge of his mouth, his lip split. “Fuck  _ you _ , man.” 

On the table, Nick’s phone was ringing, vibrating, and scooting aggressively sideways as the room ignored it. 

“Castiel is my baby brother, and I’m going to break whatever part of you is his favorite,” Nick pushed the words out from between clenched teeth.

Sam could hardly see over Nick’s shoulder, but he watched the whites of his brother’s eyes flash. 

“Cas?” Dean’s voice was strained, weezing, that single kick had obviously been very well aimed.  “Fuckin’ hell. My Cas is one of your brothers?”

“ _ Your _ Cas?” Nick seemed to be gaining strength, draggin Sam along with him for half a step as he lunged at Dean. “ _ Your Cas? _ If you EVER touch my brother again I will turn you inside out, you cheating son of a bitch. I will cut you open, from your dick to your throat, and I will watch you bleed.”

Dean had been threatened so, so many times before, and Sam wondered how this one measured up―because it sure spooked the ever loving hell out of him.  

Getting his legs under him, Dean shook himself. “Cas... Castiel is your brother.” Still rubbing at the center of his chest, repeating himself, Dean’s frown darkened. “Wait, you’re his big brother who’s been gone for years, the writer, aren’t you?”

Whatever answer Nick had to that was not in English and Sam just did his best to keep a firm grip on the man who was still straining to get free. 

“Can we all please calm down and talk about this?” Sam asked, though he had a feeling that civility was not an option here.

“You’re the brother who showed up out of nowhere with this tall, beautiful boyfriend, and then fucked off to spend the holiday with the guy’s folks?” Dean rolled his lower lip in, teeth showing for a moment in this awful kind of expression. “The one who got hurt real bad, that Cas had to sew up, who hasn’t been calling home to check in?”

Just like that, such small questions, and Nick’s thrashing ebbed.

If Sam hadn’t been holding on to Nick it was possible that the man might have been able to defend himself against Dean’s sucker punch that took him right in the stomach. Nick doubled over with an angry noise, Sam almost losing his grip on the man.

“God damn it, Dean.” Sam swore and did his best to muscle himself between his brother and his friend who were very suddenly trying to kill each other. It was all Sam could do to keep Dean at his back and point Nick at a wall where the renewed rage could do little damage. There was a scuffle behind him and it sounded like Jo had finally gotten up to join this mess. 

“You’re dating my brother,” Dean was raising his voice from somewhere behind Sam. “You fucker. You’re dating my kid brother and when he’s asleep you come out and put the moves on me, then get pissy and say you can’t because  _ I’m  _ dating someone and  _ you _ don’t cheat? You fucking hypocrite son of a bitch. Tellin’ me I gotta talk to Sam about me being in love with a guy, like you’re on some fuckin’ high horse, high ground, bull shit. BULL SHIT.”

Nick was trying so hard to twist his way out of Sam’s arm. Finally seeming to take note of what this awful weight against his back was, he fit his hands over Sam’s forearms and started to tug as he fought to turn them both back around to face Dean. He almost managed to break free, seeing as Sam hadn’t expected to hear Dean mentioning  _ love  _ on top of the fact that apparently now he thought that Nick and his brother were dating. Which was just something that he’d never wanted his brother to think, and he’d never wanted to have to try and defend his own stupid choices of making the deal with Nick in the first place, because the ends obviously justified the means, but there simply wasn’t going to be a way to convince Dean of this.

Twisting, calling over his shoulder, Nick finally raised his voice, bringing him up to a nearly normal speaking volume. “I’m not dating your goddamn brother, you apology of a human being.”

“Sammy, let go of the son of bitch so I can clean his clock.”  

Looking back, Sam could see that Jo had Dean’s arms in a death grip, having pushed him as far back as the refrigerator, using her lower center of gravity as best she could. It was like stacking pebbles up to dam a river flow; there was no way that it’d hold.

“Dean.” Sam used his ‘serious business’ voice. “Nick and me aren’t a ‘thing’. We just lied and said we were because he didn’t want to go to a family dinner on his own.”

Nick took a deep breath, straining at the bearhug he was still trapped in, even though the rigidity in his spine went a little slack.

“I don’t know what the hell is going on between you two, but you’re going to talk it over like adults, with you words and not your fists.” Sam laid out the rules like a referee though he knew he had no actual power over either of these men. He presses his cheek into Nick’s, whispering, “Whatever you’re pissed at, you need to calm the hell down. Right now.”

Nick turned his head as much as he could, his mouth grazing Sam’s jaw because of the weird angle he was being held at. “He’s cheating on my brother.”  

To which Sam had some strong and complicated feelings. Not exactly surprised that Dean would cheat on someone, seeing as he’d cheated plenty of times before―but Sam was definitely not down with the obvious reason as to how Nick knew about the indiscretion. “That sounds like a problem that’s between them.”

Breaths were a little too fast, puffed between gritted teeth. “It stopped being between ‘them’ when your brother put my hand down his pants.”

Which, actually, was not a mental image that Sam wanted or needed to have, thank you. With a firm step forward, Sam lightly crushed Nick into the wall, using the solid surface to hold the man in place. 

Nick’s only response was to make a sharp sound and bow his shoulders. 

“Look,” Sam whispered as softly as he could, close as he could get to silent while still making a sound, “ _ Daddy _ . I know Dean can be a real jerk sometimes, but if you kill him I’m going to have to kill you, and I’d miss you both too much, I’d have to kill myself so we could all kick it together in Hell, and how’s about we just  _ don’t _ . Not tonight. Ok?”

“It’s my baby brother.”

“It’s  _ my _ big brother.”

“Yeah, well, but my brother is an angel and your brother is a fucking jerk who cheated on him.” Nick tossed his shoulders side to side, testing the modified stranglehold pinning him, but it was a weak thrashing, more for show. 

“You are the oldest person in the room and I need you to start acting like it.” Sam knew that this was not an argument that was going to work well for him, but he had to try. Nick’s need to be a protective big brother might be the only thing that was stronger than his need to be an avenging big brother.  “Go answer your phone, it’s  _ still _ ringing. It’s probably your brother and he’s probably losing his mind since you texted him that you’d found Dean.”

Like he’d just heard the phone shaking away on the tabletop for the first time, Nick perked up, looking back towards the sound. “I… yeah. He’s probably… yeah. I need to talk to him.”

“You going to behave if I let you go?”

“No,” and at least Nick was honest.

“You going to try and kill Dean?”

“Not immediately, no.”

“Good enough. Thank you.” Sam smiled even though he knew that now was not a good time. It was also not a good time to kiss the other man, but Sam didn’t really think it through before committing the deed. Only a soft kiss to the hollow of Nick’s cheek that he instantly regretted a million times over in a single second. It worked in a weird way, for whatever that was worth, and the older man went limp like a cat who’d had the scruff of his neck tugged too tight. 

If Sam could take it back, he would. 

Instead he squeezed Nick tight enough to be perceived as a threat, and then carefully let go. “Go talk to your brother, I’m going to talk to mine. Ok?”

Nick, still chest first against the wall, nodded the smallest nod. “Yeah, ok.”

Turning back to the room, Sam felt like he’d won a prize when he saw that Dean was still cornered by Jo, the two of them talking with their heads together. It meant that no one other than Nick had noticed the stupid and grossly uncalled for kiss that was almost definitely platonic and completely stupid and would never be spoken of again because Sam didn’t kiss his friends and simply had zero explanation for his own actions. 

Picking up Nick’s phone, Sam passed it over, absolutely refusing to make any eye contact. He left the man to answer the persistently ringing phone, taking a moment for himself to just breathe. To try and relax, to loosen the wrenched muscles in his back, to calm down because murder had been stalled for the time being. But Nick had also had a hand in Dean’s pants… and apparently so had Castiel. Dean had a thing for grumpy, blue eyed men it turned out. 

“Cassy,” Nick sounded overly calm, which was a great lie. “What? Yeah. No. Apparently Dean is Sam’s older brother. No. I don’t believe in coincidences... I need to talk to you about―what?  _ What? _ ” 

Sam made his way across the small kitchen to where Dean stood firmly cornered by their cousin. “Hey. I think that’s enough Jerry Springer nonsense for one night.” 

Jo kept a hand on Dean’s chest, miraculously holding him in place with such an easy touch. “If you’re trying to tell me to go to bed and miss the rest of this, you’re funny.”

Blood still on his mouth, Dean seemed to have otherwise recovered, though he continued to glare daggers towards the table and its single occupant. “Jo, I’ll save you a brownie. Go home.”

“Come on. You’ve got a boyfriend, you cheated on him with his big brother. I live for this kind of drama.”

“And you’ll die for it if you’re not careful.” Dean warned, pulling Jo in and kissing the top of her head. “I’ll save you a brownie.”

“A brownie isn’t half as good.”

“That’s the offer, kiddo.” Dean sighed and started steering Jo towards the front door. “Merry Christmas, I’ll see you in the morning, if you breathe a word of this to anyone I’ll throw all your shoes in to the quarry.”

Pleading, Jo looked up at Sam. “Tell me what happens. Take notes.”

“Yeah, sure,” absolutely not. Whatever else happened here tonight Sam hoped to take to his grave. 

Looking wistfully back into the apartment, Jo sagged a little. “Alright. But I resent getting kicked out before the good part.”

Back in the kitchen, Nick sighed, and Sam looked over to see his friend sitting at the table, head hung down, defeated. 

“No… no, I noticed. Yeah, he’s very handsome. No I didn’t kill him when I found out he’d screwed you―oh! … it was you who did... the screw…ing... well, ok… um,  _ congrats  _ I guess?” Utterly defeated. Pinching the bridge of his nose and slumped low, Nick looked like he wanted to die. “Cassy, I  _ really _ don’t need the details. No. He... wow. Ok. No. That’s actually kind of impressive, but please, for the love of god, stop talking. Cassy. STOP IT.”

Jo was the only person in the room who managed to look half as beaten down, muttering, “This is so unfair,” as she stomped her way down the stairs and back to the house.  

“Cassy, will you let me talk for a damn second?” Nick had let his head fall back, looking up at the ceiling and suffering. 

Beside Sam, Dean went all kinds of tense.

And the younger brother couldn’t help but ask, “Did you and Nick really…?”

“It was just a little foolin’ around, man.” Dean was good at nearly, but not quite, making eye contact. “If I’d know the two of you had a thing, I wouldn’t have―”

“We  _ don’t _ .” Sam insisted. “I told you. We’re just friends.”

Dean’s mouth went tight, the apology still there under the quiet anger and disbelief. 

Back at the table Nick was mumbling, his voice heavy as the anger was replaced by something that sounded an awful lot like guilt. “Look, I didn’t know who he was. He was just Sam’s big brother, and me and him fucked around a little a few nights back.” 

The man was fearless, and Sam sort of respected that, even though he hated everything that was going on tonight. 

“What do you mean ‘what do I mean ‘ _ fucked around _ ’?’ It’s exactly what it sounds like.” Nick half sat up, raising his head enough for those blue eyes to pierce Dean, and Sam standing beside him started to feel some second hand guilt. “I had no idea he was yours, but the son of a bitch was… w-what about Sam? No… no. I― yes, they’re both here. This isn’t about me and Sam.”

Sam thought that now would be a great time to go to bed. If his bed wasn’t in the middle of the room he might have tried it. This shitshow had nothing to do with him, just like Nick was quietly insisting. 

“I’m not putting you on speaker phone.” Nick grumbled, but lowered the phone from his ear and set in on the tabletop, pushing a button on the screen and put both hands over his face like he wanted to hide.

“Nick?” Castiel’s voice was a little grainy when amplified through the speaker. 

“Still here. So are Sam and Dean. Boys, say hello.” There was such a change in Nick, quiet now and subdued, somewhere between being exhausted and sheepish. 

Flawlessly, shamelessly, Dean piped up, “Hey, babe.”

“Hi, Castiel.” Sam didn’t want to be part of this. He was tired, and under that quiet feeling was a sea of anger that he didn’t know how to traverse.

“Sam,” the absent man spoke a little louder, and the younger Winchester couldn’t help but come closer. “Are you alright?”

“Y-yeah. I’m fine. You?”

“This isn’t exactly how I was hoping to spend my Christmas eve.” The man confessed. “I just got off shift at the hospital when Nick texted me… are you sure that you are alright? Finding out that the man you’ve been with for years had sex with your brother has to be devastating.”  

Sam wanted to leave his body. Just  _ poof _ and die and transcend to somewhere that this wasn’t happening. “W-we’re not―”

“Cassy,” Nick butted in, “Sam and I aren’t dating. We never were.”

Silence on the other end of the phone.

“Gabriel… he bet me I couldn’t find anyone to come with me to Mom and Dad’s thing and I―” Nick’s eyes were closed tight like he was bracing for a blow. “I told him I could bring someone if I  _ wanted  _ to. He said double or nothing if he could pick who I wouldn’t be able to bring. He picked Sam, and I sort of spit in the face of etiquette on mine and Gabe’s bet, explained the whole thing to the kid and he agreed to come play along if we could split the winnings.”

Which wasn’t true. 

This was the first time that Sam was hearing anything about any kind of bet. 

Without thinking it over, he moved between where he stood and the table, reached out and smacked Nick upside the back of his head. Though it wasn’t any kind of way to deal with this new revelation, Sam grabbed his jacket and went outside. 

It was snowing. The world so incredibly still and dark aside from the distant and warm glow of the porch light from Bobby and Ellen’s. Sam didn’t go far, not wanting to do anything stupid but also not wanting to deal with any of this anymore. He sat himself down on the porch and just pointedly tried not to think too hard about any part of tonight. 

Not too long after, the front door opened. Sam glanced over out the corner of his eye and felt that spark of irritation flare back to life. It really wouldn’t have mattered which man was coming outside right then. He’d have been pissed at them either way, though for different reasons. 

“Hey, Nick.”

“Hey.” The man sat on the other side of the porch swing, more than enough space between them, one of the blankets from the bed wrapped around his shoulders like a cape. 

“All done talking to your brother?”

“Yeah... he had some things to say in private to Dean.”

“They going to be ok?”

“We’re both apologising to Cassy in our own ways. Dean is coming back to New York with us, and I’m getting to buy him the plane ticket to do it with.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Nick didn’t answer and Sam clenched his jaw, annoyed, he looked over to see a very confused look on the other man’s face.

“About me and Dean?” Nick offered haltingly, like he knew that wasn’t right, but couldn’t seem to understand what else Sam was so mad about. “I tried. I  _ did _ . But he wasn’t ready to come out to you yet and―”

“About the bet,” Sam clarified, neck feeling hot. “I’d still have gone with you… probably pretty damn happily if I’d have known it was just to piss of the little jerk who grabbed my ass and offered me a ride home.”

And Nick didn’t seem to have much to say about that. Nothing in his own defense. 

Sam crossed his arms over his chest, not in anger (though that was definitely still there), but just because the cold was finally starting to get to him. Snow piling up on the edge of the railing, blanketing the yard and everything else out there.

“I didn’t know you,” Nick started softly. “It seemed easier to tell you most of the truth and offer you cash. Dragging you into a bet didn’t feel like a good way to get you to agree to come with me.”

“But you did. You made a bet with your brother and I was the prize―”

“No, um, forty thousand dollars was the prize, you were literally just the bet part of it. He really didn’t think I’d be able to sweet talk you into coming with me.”

The fact that someone out there thought that getting to take Sam out to dinner was worth forty thousand dollars might have been a bit flattering under different circumstances, and honestly insane under all circumstances. “Well, you didn’t sweet talk me. You bribed me.”

“I’m not sorry about it.”

Startled, Sam looked over, but it was too dark out here to read the other man’s expression. 

“So if you’re wanting an apology you can fuck off.” Nick sounded tired. “This wasn’t the right way to meet someone, but I like you, and I’m glad it happened.”

If Sam wasn’t still so mad that might have made him feel something nice. “You still should have told me.”

Nick shifted, pulling his blanket tighter. “I… god, this is such a mess.”

A startled laugh found its way out of Sam. “Right?” 

“How mad are you?”

“Pretty fuckin’ pissed,” Sam said with a smile, inwardly loving the way his proclamation made the man sharing the bench laugh. “You’re a real asshole, and on top of that, you felt up my brother and lied about it.”

“You more mad about the lying or the feeling? Because only one of those was my idea, and that’s not the one that I feel bad about.”

“He’s my brother.”

“And it’s been almost three weeks since I’ve had sex.”

“Wow. Too much information, Nick.”

“I mean... damn it,” he started grumbling, getting lost for a few seconds before picking a direction to take his obvious jumble of thoughts. “I was there, he was there.  I didn’t know brothers were off limits.”

Sam believed that, but he also though that friendship sort of dictated that you didn’t screw around with someone else’s family members without clearing it with someone first. There had to be a line.

“I… I told him you’d say no, but Castiel offered for you and him to fool around if that would make things even between the four of us.”

Which was not the weirdest part of tonight, and that probably said something. “No thank you. I… I’m going to stick with Michael as my top pick of most kissable Novak.” It’s not that he was any less angry, it just felt like anger would do him significantly less good than spite would against someone like Nick.

“Gross.”

“Hey, just because you changed your answer doesn’t mean that I have to too.”

“I saw an opportunity and I took it.” Still no apology in Nick and it was as infuriating as it was beautiful. “I picked the easy one, not the one I wanted. That’s just how things work out sometimes I guess.”

Sam was no longer sure if they were joking about the same thing. Sam also wasn’t sure what he  _ wanted  _ them to be joking about. Looking over at Nick in the near blackness, Sam wasn’t sure of a lot of things.  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mmm a stressful day in the middle of 3 awful weeks. aw, yeah. have a chapter with some kissing. ha. didn't expect to read that, did you?   
> :3

Nick had fully expected the awkwardness that was bound to come with the next morning. He’d braced himself for it, at least as best as he could. He’d had a hard time sleeping, and not just from the glorious bruising along his ribs that Dean had placed there the night before, but because his brain endlessly kept providing him with a million better ways he could have handled things. 

There had to be thousand more appropriate ways to tell Sam that he’d started out as nothing more than a poker chip in a stupid bet. 

There had to be at least one way that he could have told the kid about the entirety of the bet when he had the chance.

It was hard to come to terms with being such a complete coward when the thing he was most afraid of was sleeping close enough to taste the mint from his toothpaste on Sam’s breath. 

In the morning, under the Christmas tree, Nick found a present from Santa that he absolutely did not deserve, seeing as he in no way had been a good kid this year. It was only coffee. Just a bag of really nice coffee beans and he held it close like a mother would with her child, while the Singers and Winchesters did their family thing.

Bruised lip and smiling, Dean sat beside his little brother like not a single damn thing could ever go wrong between them. Which made all Dean’s stalling and worrying about his ‘alternative lifestyle’ seem really stupid. Very low key, Nick decided that he hated them both for it. For being so close and so forgiving. So everything that Nick wasn’t with his own brothers.

There was a certain magic that came with Christmas. 

Something about sitting around a tree, red and green paper crumpled at his feet, listening to a Bing Crosby record, that made the world feel different. 

For the past decade Nick had spent his Christmas Eves with whatever friends were not off with families of their own; Christmas day by himself,  _ maybe _ going to church, but mostly doing nothing at all. He’d been missing out on this early morning magic, surrounded by family, at home. That excited hopeful feeling that most people like to pretend was unique to children, but really still lived quietly and repressed in everyone regardless of their age. 

And homesickness came unexpectedly, sneaking up and hitting like a tornado.

From his corner of the couch, while the people around him laughed and teased one another and looked honestly so damn happy-- Nick took out his phone and texted, hand shaking like a drug addict’s. He waited.

It was hard to say if the near fifteen minute lull of anxiety and dread was because Castiel was taking his time with the request, or if it was because the object of his request was feeling stubborn. 

Finally, his phone lit up. A text from an unknown number, because Nick didn’t have Mike’s phone number programmed in, because Nick didn’t think that he’d ever need it.

Unknown:  **Everything alright?**

They hadn’t spoken for years aside from one dinner, one night of drinks, and one fight, all in rapid succession. And checking in on Nick was what his big brother lead with. Why was the world obsessed with Nick’s well being? Didn’t anyone have at least one damn thing better to do with their time than worry if he was feeling ok? 

Nick smiled.

He hated himself for it, but oh, he smiled.

**Just wanted to say CHRISTMAS! and stuff. Like normal people are supposed to** , Nick typed out, deleted, typed again, and eventually hit send. 

Unknown:  **We going to try and pretend we’re normal for today?**

A laugh like a hiccup caught in his chest and he typed out:  **Sure as hell are. How’s the wife and kids on this fine festive morning??**

For some reason Michael didn’t question it. He didn’t ask what had made his twin feel nostalgic enough to reach out. A stilted text conversation fell into place, the two of them talking about all the same sorts of surface things that they’d already gone over during that family dinner weeks back. There was nothing deep, nothing important shared. And those deliberate pleasantries kept Mike from having any kind of ammunition needed to engage in any unwanted parenting of Nick. 

And Mike was very nearly tolerable when he wasn’t being bossy. 

Nick always forgot about that. 

By the end of Christmas day roughly two hundred texts had been traded, among which were a half dozen pictures of curly haired nieces and their pretty mom, a family dog named Mittens (which was an incredibly idiotic name for any pet, especially a dog kind of pet), Dad in a bathrobe looking confused but happy, Castiel laying on the floor with nieces and dog playing with little plastic animals, and a handful of other moments that Nick had never thought he wanted to be part of. 

Along with all those words and texts sat a promise of a shared meal in some neutral territory like their parent’s home, with an unbiased mediator like Anna or Cassy. Somehow Nick was supposed to fit it in between the trip back to New York tomorrow and the trip back to France in a week. 

It was strange how exhausting it could be to just sit around all day, texting with someone who made his heart hurt, enjoying good food, and suffering Sam’s slightly cold shoulder.

Tired, Nick lay there on the couch bed, dark screened phone on his chest, thinking that today might have been one of the least lame Christmases that he’d had in recent mem ory. 

Despite that optimism, Sam obviously hadn’t yet forgiven Nick for the bet (which was fair), or kissing on Dean (which wasn’t fair because no one had told him it was off limits), or some third stupid action that had crossed a line he hadn’t known about (which was as likely as anything else). 

For reasons only he knew for certain, Sam was still slightly pissed. But he had also stolen Nick’s laptop after dinner and had resumed reading the book he’d been working on during the train ride. And he sat now, nearly two hours later, sprawled on the top of the blankets, arms folded over his stomach, comfortable and not defensive. It was a vast improvement over the tight smiles and short sentences that he’d been giving since last night’s fight. 

“If I say I’m sorry will you start talking to me again?”

“I’m not ‘not talking’ to you.” Sam didn’t take his eyes off the screen.

Nick reached over, using two fingers to tug on the edge of the kid’s sleeve, trying to keep in that tenuous space between annoying and charming.

Sam still didn’t look up, but the edge of his mouth curled the smallest bit.

“Pay attention to me,” Nick adjusted how he was laying, inching his head closer to Sam’s side. “Come on… talk to Daddy.”

Pursing his lips, Sam closed his eyes. Disappointed and trying not to laugh; it was a good look for him. After a rattling sort of sigh and a shake of his head he found his voice. “Can I ask you something?”

“Anything, anything.” Nick agreed even after he knew that he’d have some strong regrets for doing so. 

“Why flowers?”

Nick stopped his tugging. 

“Your tattoos,” Sam looked down at him, “June, in your stories, has flower tattoos on her chest and arms too. So why flowers?”

As questions went, he’d honestly expected a lot worse. “To cover some of my scars.”

“That’s why  _ tattoos _ ―not why flowers.”

Nick let go of Sam to point at his own arms, even if they were covered in nice warm sleeves. “Tattoos to hide the scars,” he repeated his first answer adding on, “to pretend I’m not who I used to be. And  _ flowers  _ for my family, to make sure I don’t forget who I am.” He pointed out each one in turn, knowing where they were even if they couldn’t be seen under his clothes. “Orchids for Cassy. Snapdragons for Anna. Honeysuckles for Gabe. Carnations for Michael. Lavender for my mother. Asters for Dad.”

Sam was watching him now, wearing a curious expression.

Nick kept flowers for the same reasons that he’d given the main character in his books flowers. For family members that she’d lost, because lost didn’t have to mean forgotten. Nick really didn’t like people he knew reading his books. They tended to start figuring things out. 

“So just like June?

“Just like June, but she had hers first.” Nick didn’t have enough shame to be guilty that he’d tried out a tattoo idea on a fictional character before trying it on himself. 

“You put a lot of you in your books, don’t you?”

Shrugging while lying down was awkward, but Nick managed. 

“Do you and her have matching reasons for not being married too?”

“No… um,” Nick didn’t have the same excuses that he’d given to his main character, though maybe things would have been simpler for him if he did. 

“Back during that first night out, you said that you were going to have your wedding reception at the theater, but that was sort of the end of that conversation.” Sam scratched at his stomach, seeming to be making himself at least half as uncomfortable as he was making Nick. “I just kind of thought that you’d meant that you’d always wanted to have a wedding reception there, like how some girls plan their whole wedding out when they’re little kids… but then I was reading and―”

“And you got to the part where June reconnects with her childhood sweetheart?” 

Sam nodded slowly.

“Lilith wasn’t my childhood sweetheart.” No part of his history with that woman was easy drag back up, but Sam had asked and Nick had said ‘anything’, and it was supposed to be cathartic to talk. “We met right before I graduated, and were engaged about six months later. I was ass over teakettle in love with that woman; picking out the names for our kids, finding a house in a nice school district, putting away all my guns… that kind of love. And she was… she was sleeping with my brother Michael. So I said fuck it and moved to France with the hope that some miles and some years might give my heart time to grow back.”

“I… I had no idea, Nick. I’m so sorry.” Sam looked like a kicked puppy, so sad on Nick’s behalf, and it was sweet and terrible and the older man wanted nothing to do with it. 

“You know what I hate,” he smiled a smile that didn’t quite fit right on his face, “I hate when people look at me like I’m the saddest song they’ve ever heard. It was ten years ago. It’s done. I’m over it.” Which was the biggest lie that Nick had told in a long, long time, and it instantly tore at him. “I mean, I’m still… it’s not as bad as it was. I’m mostly over it.”

Sam wasn’t buying it. 

Sam wasn’t an idiot.

“With your brother?”

Having spent most of the day texting Mikey made Nick suddenly feel dirty. Like he’d betrayed himself. That warm Christmasy magic had worn off apparently, and he had to push his phone from his chest. “So, since we’re picking at old wounds, tell me about Madison.” 

A deer in the headlights would have looked more at ease than Sam in that moment. He turned his face back towards the computer screen, lightly tapping a finger against the spacebar without actually pressing it. “Alright. That’s… that’s fair. Um… so I met Madison during a campus tour out at Stanford back when I’d thought that’s where I was going to go. We hit it off. I ended up turning down the scholarship and going to school in New York, but we kept in touch.”

Maybe it was just a Winchester habit, complicated long distance relationships. Nick personally would advise against it, seeing as he’d never heard of a single one that ended well. 

“A year of talking once or twice a week and we started dating, always making these stupid promises that we’d see eachother again during summer break, and… and we didn’t. After a few months we talked it over and agreed that we’d been better as friends. Less weird expectation and waiting. A few weeks later she told me that she’d started seeing someone else. It wasn’t anything big or dramatic. We’d never been all that close in the first place. We’re still friends, we still talk all the time.”

“How are you always this boring?”

Sam laughed, closing the laptop and pushing it over to the side of the bed. “Sorry if I can’t be tragic and beautiful like you.”

And though he’d always enjoyed Sam’s name calling, that was probably going to have to be his favorite. 

The mattress dipped as the younger man laid down, jostling the whole bed while he settled, folding his arms behind his head. “So um… can I ask you something else?”

For a moment, Nick closed his eyes, smiling and feeling a little too vulnerable. “Probably―but if it’s another bad one be ready for me to retaliate.” 

“If you were engaged to a woman, does that make you straight or…”

“Equal opportunist.” Nick peeked one eye open in time to watch the man beside him look shifty and uncomfortable. “Ok, but I spent puberty secluded upstate in an all boys school. Six years of  _ all  _ boys, only boys, expect for two months during summer breaks. My first time was with a guy. I was curious, he was curious, and it’s not like there were other options. I think if I had to pick, I’d prefer girls, if only because they’re just so damn pretty… if that helps to ease that uncomfortable straight-man anxiety that guys always get when they think that there might be another guy checking them out.”

“I wasn’t… it doesn’t bother me.”

“Says the very straight man who made a very big deal of pointing out how hetrosexual he was when we first met.”

Slowly, Sam nodded, the hollow of his cheek darkening as he ground his teeth. “You caught me off guard, coming in and asking me out like you did. I’ve always considered myself pretty straight, but that’s not the same as being a homophobe―and if it bothered me I wouldn’t have agreed to go out with you and play pretend in the first place.”

Considering how Nick had witnessed just how easily Sam accepted his big brother’s secret last night, Sam’s proclamation right shouldn’t have come as any kind of surprise. Sam was good people. Easy going and accepting.

It made Nick’s misplaced crush on the kid all the more awful and unwanted. At least he knew that if he’d been dumb enough to act on it, or say anything, the kid would have let him down very gently.  “Mmmm, maybe. But the money probably helped.”

“Yeah, ok. The money helped a lot. But I’m not… it doesn’t bother me. I still like you.” Sam’s smile felt genuine for the first time since yesterday, but he turned his face away before Nick really had a chance to enjoy it.

“Aw shucks, Sam. You really know how to make a guy feel special.”

Laughing, the kid simply said, “Shut up.” 

Nick was disturbed by the dawning realisation that this here was the part of Sam that he was so overly drawn to. He’d just assumed it was the dimples, or those broad shoulders, or that mouth that would have made nuns have inappropriate thoughts. It was so much worse to figure out that it was the joking and teasing that made Nick’s chest feel tight and his stomach twist into knots. It was the worst.

He rubbed a wrist over his eyes and hated himself.

Beside him, Sam piped up, “You ok?” 

“Yeah?”

“You made a weird noise.”

Nick hadn’t noticed, but he was sure that whatever sound he’d made had been pitiful as best. “Just tired.”

Like the big sweet man that he was, Sam got off the bed and turned out the room’s light. “You gonna be bothered if I stay up reading for a while?”

Still hiding behind a hand, Nick shrugged. “You’d be surprised what I can sleep through… g’night.”

Climbing back onto the bed, Sam repeated softly, “G’night.”

And for much longer than Nick wanted to, he lay there pretending to be asleep before he finally managed to pass into unconsciousness. 

 

**.:.**

 

One last day in South Dakota passed uneventfully, though time wasted with Sam’s family was honestly nothing short of enjoyable. Nick was nearly sad to tell Mary goodbye at the airport. He even got a small hug out of their parting, and he wouldn’t complain. 

What he would complain about however as the god damn flight delay. They were going from Sioux Falls down into Laguardia and it only should have been a four hour flight. After their third hour sitting in the terminal, waiting for the snowstorm in New York to pass, Nick was starting to feel antsy. There was only so long he could sit and listen to the brothers happily arguing about Star Wars, before he thought he might lose it. There had been some efforts to get writing done, to focus on his computer and ignore the roughly hundred people milling around the terminal waiting for their planes to start loading passengers, but focus wasn’t the easiest thing in these sorts of settings. 

He tucked his laptop back into its case and dug around in his bag before pulling out a deck of cards. Instantly he had Dean’s attention, the older Winchester getting an eager glint in his eyes. Nick remembered Sam telling him not to mention cards to Dean because his brother had a problem―but Nick had one too and he needed to do something while they waited or he was going to go crazy. 

So he started shuffling and dealing out cards and that green eyed son of a bitch never questioned it, just eagerly took his cards and asked, “Are we playing for money?”

“No,” Sam shut that idea down instantly, eying his brother and then Nick with an unsaid lecture heavy in his gaze. He picked up the cards that Nick had been stacking on his knee and shook his head. “We can play for skittles,” he nodded to the bag that his mother had packed for them before they left the house (snacks for the trip like they were kids going on a field trip and it had been too sweet to turn down). 

Nick had wanted the nice distraction of beating Dean at cards, it meant that he was in no way anticipating Sam laying down a Royal Flush on their first hand. Or a Full House on the second. Or the three aces. 

Reshuffling the cards, and already dangerously running low on candy, Nick realised that Sam’s warning of avoiding any kind of gambling with Dean had been to cover the fact that he himself was obviously a card shark. 

“I think he’s cheating,” Nick said in a stage whisper to Dean. “I just can’t figure out how.”

“Far as I can tell, he flashes you with one of those Boy Scout smiles and just does whatever the hell he wants while you’re stunned.” Dean sorted through the cards in his hand, passing one back to Nick, grinning quietly. 

Which might have been true. Nick definitely felt a little stunned each time Sam looked up with one of those pretty smiles of his. The kid probably could have gotten away with just about anything if he only grinned at Nick first. 

“Maybe I’m not cheating and you two old men just suck?” Sam offered an alternative interpretation 

“ _ Va te faire foutre _ ,” Nick grinned tightly and hoped that the feeling came across clear enough. 

Dean snickered, and sorted through his cards. “That sounds so much better when your brother says it.”

Confused, Nick looked up, slowly frowning. “Cassy?”

“I don’t know the other ones.” Dean pointed out. “But Cas gets a little too French on me sometimes and it’s kind of the best. Ya’ know?”

Nick didn’t like to think about the situation where it would have been appropriate for Cassy to say ‘fuck you’ to Dean. This was his baby brother they were talking about, a brother who was perpetually eleven years old in Nick’s mind, and  _ eww _ . 

“Come on, Dean.” Sam complained with a heavy sigh. “I don’t need to hear about that.”

“He puts that little  _ ‘je voudrais’ _ in front of it and...  _ mmhmn _ ,” Dean’s French wasn’t too terrible, but his hungry noise at the end was completely uncalled for.

“Letting you know, you keep talking about my Cassy like that and I  _ will _ hurt you.” Nick looked over his cards. “Paper cut the hell out of you.”

Reluctantly, Sam glanced up. “Do I even want to ask?” 

Not really thinking it over, Nick translated, “I want to fuck you… but in a kind of formal… polite sort of way? Like a gentleman would.”

Sam’s eyes went a little round as he stared at Nick, pink creeping high on his cheeks. 

“No.” Nick said a little too fast when he realised the possible confusion. “Not me. That’s… that’s what Cassy’s been saying to your brother.” 

“I- I knew what you meant,” Sam said in a way that sounded an awful lot like a lie. “But thanks for making it weird for everyone.”

Dean couldn’t have been laughing harder at them, stalling the card game while it took a few minutes for him to get over his case of the giggles. 

Thankfully a voice came on one of the loudspeaker announcing that the weather had finally cleared out in New York and they would be boarding in five minutes.

The flight, once it finally got underway, was short―though the two small vodka cranberries that Nick had and the brief nap and then a third drink certainly helped. He didn’t usually drink in the middle of the afternoon, but the idea of going back to his own family sort of hit him a little harder than he’d expected. And it wasn’t near enough to get properly drunk, but it was enough that he could ignore how close to giddy Sam and Dean were to be riding in first class. Usually Nick wouldn’t have splurged for the fancier tickets, but here in the middle of the holidays most seats were full except the pricey ones, also the three of them all had unnaturally long legs and the extra room was more than welcome. 

The each only had one carry on bag, which meant that they got to skip the baggage claim after they touched down, and just walk out to the downstairs portion of the airport where anyone could come and go without having to check with TSA. He’d been texting with his little brother off and on since before they boarded the flight, so Cassy knew exactly when they’d be arriving. It meant that coming down the escalator Nick got to pick the dark haired little dork out of all the people moving around below, like a quick game of Where’s Waldo. An easy game of Where’s Waldo, seeing as Castiel was the only person down on the ground floor frowning up at the escalator. It made him easy to pick out of the crowd.

“Hey, there he is,” Nick stepped off the moving stairs and held his arms out to his baby brother, and felt only slightly miffed when Cassy moved right past him. His brother raising his hands up to catch an unsuspecting looking Dean by the cheeks and pull him down into a very deep, very slow kiss.

A few of the people passing slowed, wearing startled expressions. There might have been a couple disgusted looks, and there was definitely at least two women and one grinning young man who took out their phones and snapped quick pictures. 

Not necessarily wanting to just stand there and watch what seemed to be a rather intimate greeting, Nick glanced at Sam, and had to laugh at the stunned expression the kid wore. Teasing, he asked, “How come you never say hi to me like that anymore?”

Shaking his head and looking down at his own feet, Sam took a slow, cleansing breath, “I feel like there’s a good comeback to that, but I’ve got nothin’ right now.”

Nick glanced over to see their brothers hugging, mouths no longer occupied, just faces mashed into each other’s shoulders in a crushing kind of bearhug.  Try as he might, Nick couldn’t deny how aggressively cute they were. It almost made him wish he had some jerk to snuggle him when he got off planes. Coming in from France all he’d had was Gabriel, who was a jerk in his own right, but not the kind that Nick wanted to hide his face against and hug for long enough that innocent bystanders started getting the wrong idea.

“Alright, you two. Break it up before someone calls security,”  Nick grumbled. “You’re blocking the flow of traffic.”

The two men let go of one another so reluctantly it hurt to watch, Cassy looking up with those owl like eyes of his. “Welcome back, Nick.”

“Do I get a hug too?” He asked, holding his arms open again, mostly teasing, but the hug came all the same. His younger brother giving him a gentle squeeze before getting that worried look that he seemed to favor whenever they talked for too long. “Have you been drinking? You smell like alcohol… And how is your side? Did you get your stitches out, or do we need to take care of that on the way home?” 

“I took care of them.” Nick promised, lightly squeezing a hand around the back of Cassy’s neck in a promise. 

“Dude, you should have seen it,” Dean shook his head, looking so damn happy with just the state of the world right then. “He just used a pair of scissors and pulled the damn things out like it was nothin’.”

For the moments that Dean spoke, Cassy seemed to be incapable of doing anything other than gazing at the man with this longing expression, but he quickly turned back to Nick and narrowed his eyes. “ _ You _ took them out?” 

“Come on, don’t ask it like that.” Nick passed his bag to his little brother and started walking towards the exit. “You knew I would. Don’t go pretending to be surprised.”

The annoyance in Castiel was a physical weight against Nick’s back and he grinned to himself.

“What lot did you park in?”

Pushing past him, Castiel lead the way out of the airport, Dean catching up with him to hold his hand while they walked.

Nick had been enjoying just being an annoying older brother, but that sort of faded into the background while they walked out into the tail end of a snow storm, and on to the parking garage. When he’d first found out that Cassy had been with a dubious one night stand that summer, he’d been sort of proud of the kid for knowing what he wanted in life and going for it. When he’d found out that thing that Castiel wanted had been Dean, Nick had been angry, because his brother could do so much better than someone who would mess around behind his back. And here, while they walked, Nick realised he didn’t know what he thought anymore. 

But he watched as Cassy raised Dean’s hand and kissed the other man’s knuckles and… and… 

And Nick’s opinion didn’t matter anyways. 

His brother was happy.

His brother might actually be in love.

And good for him if he was.

Nick smiled and walked and liked the way that Sam just kept this quiet, happy sort of look to him like a proud but slightly confused parent. 

It was only obvious when they’d finally reached Castiel’s generic black car in the sea of other unmarked cars, when his little brother took out a set of keys and tried to hand them over to Nick.

“Am I driving?” Nick wasn’t necessarily against this plan, but he had some doubts as to whether or not it was a good idea.

“I want to sit in the back with Dean,” Castiel explained while he put Nick’s bag into the trunk. 

“Well, I mean, who doesn’t?” Nick nodded towards the older Winchester with a raised eyebrow, not sure if it had been enough time to joke about this, but also accepting that he was a man made of little more than carbon and bad timing. 

Castiel looked up from the trunk with a dangerous expression.

“Alright then. Too soon. I’ll wait another day or so before joking about that time that your boyfriend and I were licking each other.” Nick grinned and passed the keys to Sam.

Sam stood there dumbly, holding onto the keys like he had no idea what to do with them, finally saying, “I don’t think they’re going to want you riding in back with them, Luce.”

Oh, but the fun Nick could have in the backseat with two other men if one of them wasn’t his own brother.  “I never drive when I’ve been drinking, so the honor’s all yours, pretty boy.”

Sam gave him a flat look, though if it was in response to the name calling or the fact that he had to drive an unfamiliar car in the snow logged streets amidst the notoriously bad New York city traffic, it was hard to tell. Either way, he begrudgingly got behind the wheel and took them from the parking garage. 

The snow storm that had delayed their flight didn’t seem to have dampened any of the goings on out here in the city. The only notable difference between right then and any other winter day was the two feet of still mostly white snow on the sidewalks, slightly less pedestrians out and about, and a few snowplow trucks holding up traffic more than the normal amount.

Looking out at the grey, bleak streets, Nick could only quietly wish that he’d had a little more to drink on the plane. He really hated this city. 

The quiet of the car made it only too easy to focus on how awful it was to be back here again. “So, we doing dinner tonight, or…?”  

No answer from the backseat. No one telling him yes or no, and Castiel had specifically invited Nick and Sam to have dinner with him once he got back from visiting with Sam’s family. 

Glancing in the rearview mirror he realised that no one had heard his question and no one was going to be answering. Dean was carefully holding Castiel’s chin, tilting his head up, and brushing kisses over his mouth, the tip of his nose, eyelids, mouth again. A lot more mouth. Just mouth. Taking breaks only long enough to moon into each other’s eyes. They were disgusting; and Nick had been watching them  _ way _ too long without realising it. 

He fixed his eyes on the license plate of the red Toyota idling ahead of them at the light, wondering just how damn drunk Dean had been the night that they’d come together on the porch―because it was obvious that there was no one else in the world for Dean other than Castiel. 

“Hey, I know you two’ve got a track record, backseat 0, hot backseat sex 1―”

“Three,” Castiel corrected a little breathily. “It was three times.” 

And that would go up pretty high on the list of things that Nick hadn’t wanted to know about. “Good for you. That doesn’t change the fact that you guys don’t need to defend your win. At least wait until Sam and I can get out of earshot. You’ll give the kid nightmares.”

“It’s my car,” was Cassy’s whole defense as he went right back to kissing on Dean.

Nick knew that the two men hadn’t touched each other since August, and he could respect a mighty need when he saw it, but he’d also like to not have to see it. 

“So, next red light we get to?” Nick made sure he spoke loud enough to be heard over the heavy petting going on behind him. “Chinese fire drill. Dean can drive, and Sam and I can take a turn in the backseat.”

“No we cannot,” Sam said very firmly, and he didn’t look at Nick, but his eyes flicked to the rearview mirror and his cheeks darkened before he started driving again. 

“Come on, I promise to be on my bestest behavior.” Nick dragged a finger in an X over his heart.

Sam wasn’t buying it. “Yeah, you did that back at my Aunt and Uncle’s house too, and ended up licking my brother, so…”

The soft noises in the backseat did nothing for Nick’s mood, or his imagination. Unwanted but not wholly unexpected ideas coming to mind. Trying hard to cover up any anything going on his his own traitorous mind, he joked,  “Have you ever considered that Dean might actually be delicious and it was nothing sexual at all?”

“I bit him once when we were kids,” Sam said almost conversationally. “I can assure you he does not taste even remotely good.”

From the back seat Dean started to argue, “Hey now. I’m―”

“Stop talking,” Cassy’s usually soft voice had gone very rough, and in an uncomfortably stunned kind of way the whole car followed his orders. 

It took Nick nearly a full minute to realise that the command had been directed at only Dean, and nearly three whole minutes for him to be brave enough to try talking just in case he’d been wrong. 

“I think that maybe we should just drop these two crazy kids off at Cassy’s place, an’ take our own cabs back home.” It was obvious that the men sitting behind them needed to be alone for a few hours, so dinner another night might be a better choice.”

Sam didn’t answer right away, and Nick looked over to see the kid very firmly with his hands at two and ten on the wheel, eyes fixed on traffic, and face and neck notably red. 

Glancing back over his shoulder uneasily, almost expecting to get an eyeful of someone’s partially undressed brother, Nick was slightly disappointed to see that there was only more of that slow and deliberate kind of kissing going on. He didn’t know why Sam looked like a kid watching a movie sex scene with his parents. Sure, it was their brothers, and that made it a little dubious, but it was just kissing and light petting of cheeks and shoulders. It was honestly sort of tame if you could overlook the occasional utterly lost expression traded between the two men when they broke to catch their breaths. Looks like that were not meant to be witnessed by other people.  

“Hey,” Nick reached between the seats and lightly smacked the kid’s arm, trying to be a distraction from whatever was going on in that pretty head of his, he asked the first thing that came to mind. “When you start back at work?”

Sam blinked at the same rate a humming bird flapped its wings. “Oh, um, tonight actually. I got a text yesterday from my boss Reese seeing if I could come in and help out with a few cars. And I’ll be back at the bar tomorrow.”

“Just jumping right into it, huh?”

“It’s the holidays,” Sam pointed out, “and I’ve got bills to pay.”

“The bars busy right after Christmas?”

“Really busy.”

“But you’ve got New Year’s off, right? Because there’s no way in hell I’m going to that party without you there as a meat shield.”

“You know, I went to the last party. It wasn’t really that bad.” Sam nearly lectured, like he couldn’t understand why Nick wasn’t super into fun family holiday get togethers. 

And it was probably teasing on the kid’s part, but Nick worried that he heard too much reservation in those words, like someone was thinking of backing out on him. “Come on. You promised. You wouldn’t leave me all alone for a whole night with my family.”

“It’s just your family.”

“And without some sort of buffer, either me or Michael aren’t going to make it to see next year.” Nick didn’t like to talk about his brother, but Sam already knew what had happened, and Sam had already done the pitying expressions. They could move on. “I’ll behave myself if you’re there. Promise.”

“Quality emotional blackmail there, Nicky.” The cutesy name softened the accusation, but it still settled between them a little heavily.  

“I- I didn’t mean it that way.” Nick apologized. “Just that you’d be a welcome distraction.”

Sam drummed his hands on the steering wheel, pursing his lips before finally saying, “I don’t mind being a distraction.”   

For whatever reason, just the way that Sam said it, Nick felt like he’d missepped and found himself in trouble again.

“Or we could just ditch them,” Nick pointed out, smiling hopefully. “Stay in, just the two of us, say fuck it to family obligations.”

Castiel kicked the back of Nick’s seat, pointing out very firmly, “You promised you’d be there, Nick. You’re not  _ not  _ going.” 

“Hey, go back to eating your boyfriend’s face,  _ Cassy _ . Us single, and not ravenously horny, adults are trying to have a proper conversation up here.”

His seat shook with a second sharp kick. “Stop calling me that, and please don’t use that word. I don’t like it.”

Nick was exactly the sort of person who loved to do precisely what they’d been told not to,  _ only  _ because they’d been told not not. “Serious? What’ve you got against the word ‘conversation’?”

“The other word,” his brother had instantly taken on that annoyed little kid tone. “No one’s bothered by the word ‘conversation’.”

Grinning, Nick glanced behind him. “Horny?”

Cassy’s eyes narrowed, he also was curled as much against Dean’s side as he could be with his seatbelt still on, and the way he looked so small sitting like that sort of undermined the irritated expression he wore. 

“Make you a deal,” grinning, Nick looked back out at the street. “You two stop pawing at eachother like  _ horny  _ teenagers where I have to see it and I’ll stop calling you out on it.” 

“Hey, um, as much fun as this is, I have no idea where I’m going and directions would be nice.”

And as quietly annoyed as Cassy was with Nick, it all melted away as he gave directions to the man driving his car. 

With the super awesome nearly non moving traffic, it only took them about an hour to get to where they were going. At least the canoodling stopped for the time being, greatly decreasing the level of awkward in the car. Awkward that came right back when they got to Cassy’s place, and his brother handed Nick and Sam their bags and told them he’d see them tomorrow.

“Oh, you’re really kicking us out.” Nick held his laptop case to his chest and laughed a little too loud.

“I mean... if you want to call a cab, you two can come inside while you wait.” And that was one hell of a reluctant offer from the little dark haired man.

“Cassy, are you going to need your car tomorrow?”

“...no?”

“Then we’ll steal your car instead of waiting around for a cab. I’ll drop Sam off at his place and take myself home. I can bring your car back tomorrow.”

It was a testament to how alone Castiel really wanted to be right then, that he waved them goodbye and pulled a stupidly grinning Dean along into the house.

Stunned at how well his suggestion had been received, Nick snorted a small laugh and shook his head. “...those two are gonna’ bone so hard.”

“Thanks for that mental image and the always classy word choice.” Sam shook his head too, holding up the keys like an offer. “You feeling clear enough to drive? I’ve had enough for one day.”

Nick took the keys and pulled up the GPS on his phone, no idea how to get from his brother’s house to the college. Sam was such pleasant company now that there wasn’t heavy petting going on behind them. 

“Thanks for coming with me,” Sam said into the comfortable quiet. 

“...driving you home? I never really liked taxis either.”

“No.” Sam’s soft laugh said that maybe he didn’t care as much about taking a cab that possibly hundreds of thousands of people had had their asses in. “The whole trip home. It was fun.”

And that was one of the stranger things that anyone had ever thanked Nick for. “ _ Mon chou _ , I invited myself to your family’s Christmas, like a needy boyfriend who doesn’t know how to take ‘no’ for an answer. Thank  _ you _ for not telling me to fuck off like you should have.”

Sam kept laughing. “It worked out alright.”

“I’m beginning to question your definition of alright.”

“I’d say that my ‘alright’ is probably pretty close to the same ‘alright’ that you keep saying you are.”

To which Nick felt like he should defend himself, but at the same time, where was the lie? “I’m perfectly fine.”

“All the time?”

“All the damn time.”

“Look it up in the dictionary, there a picture of you?”

“A really nice picture of me, looking so incredibly alright it’s like wow.”

“ _ Wow _ ?”

Nick couldn’t keep going, he’d started laughing a little too hard to make words.

Beside him, Sam was stifling chuckles into the back of a hand like he was pretending to scratch his cheek. Eventually they calmed back down, breathy laughs still cropping up now and then, easy and relaxed like they hadn’t been in a few days.  

In the distance, fogged grey in the slowly falling snow, the college loomed up. And that was the end of things. Nick grieved. “Do we really have to go back?” 

“Yes?” Sam answered like a question, like he wasn’t sure, like he might be open to alternative choices here. “You’ve still got a few days before you’re headed Home though, right?”

Which was somehow worse than the square grey buildings that Sam lived in creeping up on the right side of the car. “A few days.” 

There was nothing that could keep Nick here in the city, so close to his family, with the traffic and the smog and the sea of irritated people. But for the first time ever the idea of leaving this place damaged him, cut at his insides, hurt something he didn’t have a name for. 

“You know, I think I’m gonna’ miss you.”

“Like… Wizard of Oz: ‘but I’ll miss you most of all, Scarecrow’?”

The car came to a stop in one of the many empty parking spots. It looked like most of the students in the dorms were still off enjoying their holiday. 

Sam didn’t move to unbuckle his seatbelt. “More like the Tinman.”

Jokingly, Nick put a hand to his chest. “Really?”

“Yeah, because for some reason you seem to think you don’t have a heart,” the younger man turned in his seat to face Nick. “And that sounded a lot less hokey in my head before I said it outloud.”

It was an uncomfortably accurate description and Nick couldn’t argue with it. “You know, it’s been a long day, I’ll let it slide.”

“Gee, thanks.” Sam ran a hand through his hair and smiled in that cute puppy dog way that he had. “So, um, am I going to see you again before New Years?”

“Do… you…  _ want  _ to see me again before New Years? I’d have thought you’d be tired of my face by now.”

“So tired of your dumb face by now,” Sam laughed. “But I think I’d be ready to see it again by tomorrow night.”

“Sam,” Nick did his best to keep his tone light and joking when what he wanted to do was frown and recoil and feel very uncertain as to what was going on, “are you asking me out?”

“No. I’m working at the bar until three.” Sam crossed his arms over his chest and looked pleasantly defensive. “I just thought if it wasn’t past your old man bedtime by then, that you’d like to maybe get a drink.”

If it was any other gorgeous young thing sitting with him then Nick would have one hundred percent considered that a request for a date. But this was Sam. So it was not a request for anything other than a drink. 

Drinks were nice.

“If I’m not asleep by then,” Nick nodded, promising, feeling very stupid for some reason. 

Sam sat there looking at him, for way too long. 

It felt like there was something else that Nick was supposed to say. Something to add on. He had a whole lot of nothing. Nothing that felt like the appropriate thing to do in a dark car with someone like Sam. 

“...tomorrow night?” Nick repeated the offer, shifting uncomfortably and trying very hard to hide it. 

“Yeah,” Sam found his smile again, ducking his head and licking his lips in a nervous sort of way. “Tomorrow night… if you’re still awake.”

Nick watched Sam go, sitting in the warmth of the still running car while the kid trudged through the snow and into the dorms. He put his forehead against the steering wheel for a moment, suddenly really, really looking forward to when he could go back home to France.

  
  
  


  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, I heard that there was a season primer that happened. Everyone doing ok?  
> Can I offer a chapter to ease those who (like a few friends of mine) were all sorts of bristled and pissed at the new episode?  
> I'm SEASONS behind and don't even mind. I keep up to date through gif sets and don't have to trudge through bad writing XD I've got enough of my own making without having to watch tv

Sam was in a strange sort of mood tonight. 

What had gone on in the back of the car had had an unexpected effect on him. Unexpected, because Sam had seen more than his fair share of his big brother kissing on girls over the years and it had never been more than something that made him roll his eyes. The two brother had shared a bedroom growing up, and at at least once a month Sam would come up to their room grab something, only to find Dean break in the girlfriend of the week. But seeing those intimate moments in horrified glimpses as a very young teen, was different than being stuck in a car with it. 

It had been a relief to get rid of Castiel and Dean and finally have the car to just him and Nick. 

Half an hour after driving away, Sam would have given his right arm for any way out of the very same car.

“Are you asking me out?” Nick had this way of smiling with just a matchstick flash of teeth, and a tilt of his head. Just a smile―and everyone had their own unique simile, but no one else’s made Sam instantly forget what he was talking about.

But not talking gave him a beautifully clear moment to realise that indeed, he had just asked Nick out, which wasn’t the goal. Wasn’t his intention. He’d just thought it would be nice to see the man  _ twice _ instead of just once more before Nick hopped a plane and vanished like a ghost. It was a stupid thing to want, everything that had ever happened between them was kind of stupid. But coming back here to New York, to  _ home _ , made Sam realize that whatever short lived friendship they’d formed was rapidly coming to an end, and he wasn’t ready. 

“ _ No _ . No. I’m working at the bar until three… I just thought if it wasn’t past your old man bedtime by then, that you’d like to maybe get a drink.” Which was a great save and he was so proud of himself.

But then Nick promised with that same smile of his, “If I’m not asleep by then,” and Sam got ever so slightly lost again. 

...Sam was in a strange sort of mood tonight. 

The kind of mood where he just wanted to touch another human, wanted that solid reassurance or confirmation, or whatever ‘nice’ word people liked to use when they couldn’t stop themselves from thinking about when was the last time they’d kissed someone.  

He’d blame Dean and Castiel with their inability to keep their hands to themselves. It was easier than blaming Nick. After all, Nick hadn’t done a damn thing to deliberately encourage or confuse Sam. That seemed to have happened all on its own. 

Irritate at himself, Sam ran a hand over his face, taking a weak breath and pushing aside the persistent memory of what he’d seen in the rearview mirror while trying to drive. Now was not a good time to try and reconcile those warm, confusing ideas that kept trying to come to mind, against the hollow and inevitable goodbye lurking in their near future. 

He needed to get out of this car.

“...tomorrow night?” Nick repeated the offer, smile softening.

“Yeah,” Sam tried to smile back, but felt his eyes drift to the other man’s mouth for some reason, and he had to look away. “Tomorrow night… if you’re still awake.”

“Yeah, we’ll see,  _ mon petit chou _ . Good night.”

“Good night, Daddy.” Sam loved the laugh that pulled out of Nick a little more than he should have. 

Grabbing his bag from the back, Sam hoofed it through the parking lot and to the familiar dorm doors. After curfew (even during the winter break) Sam had to use a key to get in, and he was glad he had it with him seeing as there was no one at the front desk. The empty lobby was a bit strange to see, but with the holidays there probably weren’t enough campus staff on the payroll to worry about the doors of a mostly empty dorm hall. He used his key again in the elevator, heading up to the sixth floor. It felt weird not passing anyone else in the hall, though he could hear muffled televisions and conversations through closed doors, so he knew he wasn’t the only one staying here for at least part of the break.

For the past year Sam had shared his room with a man named Benny. The two of them didn’t really have much in common, Benny being a history major, with a love of partying, football, and his girlfriend who always had perfect makeup and nails. Sam and him got along pretty well―well enough that they’d lived together peaceably for a whole year, only talking once or twice a week when their schedules crossed. Real hard to dislike a guy who was almost never around. 

Sam knew that Benny had left for home on the same day as his last final, so by all rights there shouldn’t have been anyone in their room when Sam finally got the door unlocked.

Yet there someone was. 

The lights in the little room were all on, the beds both made (sort of), and the desks clean-ish, looking very much how Sam had left it over a week ago, except for the man. 

Nick’s brother Michael sitting casually in Benny’s chair, feet up on the edge of the desk, playing some kind of game, judging by the jaunty music coming from the phone between his hands. The only time Sam had ever seen this man before had been a rather liquor colored night, and the Michael had been wearing a tuxedo, most of the other details about him hazy at best.

Still. Sam instantly recognised those very blue eyes that glanced up at him, the same eyes as Nick’s because apparently even fraternal twins sometimes matched up in unexpected little ways.

“Traffic must have been awful,” the dark haired man nodded before looking back at his phone. “Your flight got in nearly two hours ago.”

For lack of any better way to say it, Sam asked, “What the hell are you doing in my room?”

“Finishing this Candy Crush level. Gabe got me hooked on this stupid game and I―ha. There we go.” With a satisfied little nod he tapped the screen before tucking the phone into a pocket. He had on jeans and t-shirt like a normal human, leather jacket making clean lines over the same sort of broad shoulders that his younger twin had, but that smile was all his own, and it didn’t make Sam’s insides go funny. “I came to talk.”

“I’m going to that New Year’s thing with Nick and Cassy, assuming you’re invited too, so you really could have waited.”

“Already been waiting since the night Nick showed up with you.” Michael nodded towards Sam’s desk. “Come sit down, you’re going to give me a stiff neck trying to look up at you like this.”

Sam didn’t want to sit down, simply on principle. He tossed his bag onto the bed, folding his arms over his chest, leaning up against his own desk. Pointedly standing as he asked a question he already thought he might know the answer to. “What did you want to talk about?” 

“I’d like to talk about why my brother withdrew twenty thousand dollars from his offshore bank account the day after he got here, and why you had a cash deposit for the same amount less than two days later.” Michael kept that same easy smile, so conversational as he laid out easy accusations. “Your usual paychecks are never over four hundred, and you just  _ don’t  _ pull in that kind of under the table cash working for Reese during your nights off from the bar.”

Sam might have considered actually answering if it weren’t for the blatantly horrifying invasion of privacy going on.

“See… even if I did believe in coincidences that would be one hell of one. Don’t you think?” 

“What I think is that this is a secure building that you need two different keys to get into.”

“Ooh.  _ Keys _ .” Michael raised his eyebrows like he was impressed. 

It was such a Nick expression that it caught Sam off guard and he very nearly smiled. 

“Look, breaking and entering is the smallest problem you’re going to have tonight. I need to know what you’re giving my very gullible brother in trade for enough cash to buy a moderately priced sedan.” Strangely there was no threat in Michael’s tone, no insult, just this quiet sort of protectiveness for his brother. 

Sam had done nothing wrong in taking the money. Cash in trade for being Nick’s boyfriend for one night had been wholly for Gabriel’s benefit. There was no harm at all in letting Michael in on the fact that it had been nothing more than a stupid bet. Especially since the guy was related to the two miscreants and probably wouldn’t be even slightly surprised. 

“It’s just that you’re not the first pretty young thing that he’s made large cash withdrawals for. I’d sort of hoped that he’d grown out of it, or at least wised up enough to recognise a honeytrap when he sees one.”  

But if it was a choice between explaining himself or getting offended, Sam knew which one he’d always pick first. “Excuse me?”

Michael’s smile faltered, and he looked away, running a hand through his hair. “That didn’t come out right. You’d think that with two weeks to figure out how to ask what’s going on I’d have figured out a good way to say it that wasn’t like an accusation”

“You’re trying to ask if I’m going out with your brother for money?”

“I’m trying to ask if you’re sleeping with him for money.”

Sam wasn’t used to people accusing him of being a prostitute, and he might have sounded a little colder that he intended when he answer, “No. I’m not.”

“No?” Michael looked a little surprised. “That’s… that’s unfortunate.”

“Is it really?”

“Well, if Nicky was just in it for some hot college boy sex then that’s none of my business. But if he’s with you because he likes you? Well that’s where you and me are going to have a problem.”

It hadn’t taken much, but Sam had officially decided that he didn’t care for Michael. Threats never went over well and Sam never liked anyone who thought that they could tell him what to do. 

“Did you ever consider that maybe him and I have been together for three years now like he told all of you, and that maybe we’re happily in love, and it’s none of your damn business why he’s giving me money?”

“Yeah. No. We both know that none of that is true.” Michael was concerningly calm. “See, Nick falls in love hard and fast. There’s no way that he’s been with someone for three years without meeting them in person. You’ve never left the states though, and he hasn’t been out here in forever, so…”

“Wow. You just know everything, don’t you?”

“I know most things,” he corrected with that same unflappable calm. “When it comes to my brother I’m more than a little invested in his well being. So when I find out that he’s picking up strays, giving them money, spending a week at their house… well, I start to wonder why and I start to worry.”

“You ever consider that maybe him and I have been together for three years now like he told you,” Sam repeated himself very sharply,  “and that maybe we’re happily in love, and it’s none of your damn business why he’s giving me money.” 

“It  _ is  _ my business, though. I love my brother and God knows he can’t take care of himself. Nicky’s important not just to me, but to the whole well being of our family. I’m sure you already know by now that my little brother is all set to take over the family business once Dad steps down. He’s a great choice for it―”

Sam knew nothing like that. As far as he was concerned, Nick was a writer, a teacher, and content with that life that he’d made for himself. In all their long rambling conversations it had never once come up that Nick was next in line to take over whatever the hell shady business it was that his family did. 

“None of us were even mad when Dad made the announcement.” Michael kept going, smiling softly.  “Nick’s got a head for money and contracts. He likes sitting at a desk all day. He’s good with words― he was always better with words than with people. He was always the shy one, never knew how to flirt, never really dated, but he’d always end up falling for anyone who’d smile at him. Ass over teakettle for anyone who’d give him the time of day… got ‘doormat’ written all over him and he’s always attracted a certain kind of person who’s good at noticing that particular fault of his. But that’s how me and him are different.” 

Michael took his feet down from the desk, sitting up and pulling off his jacket, folding it carefully in half before laying it over the back of his chair. The shoulder holstered gun came as a bit of a surprise, the straps very dark against his shirt. “I was never shy, and I could never sit in an office all day. I couldn’t hide behind books like my brother does. But I’m more social, ya’ know? I like getting out... meeting new people...”

Sam really didn’t do well with being threatened. 

“Like this. This is nice. Talking.” Michael rested an arm casually over the back of his chair, same too calm smile in place. Very obviously displaying the way the dark holster straps cut across his white shirt. “Getting to know the kid who came sniffing around the instant that my brother, the man set to be incharge of a multi-billion dollar company, comes back into town for the first time in a decade.”

“Look, I didn’t even know he was a writer when I first met him. I sure as hell didn’t know about what his family does. I still don’t know, and I really don’t want to.” Sam squared his shoulders, making sure that his superior height was fully noticed. “You― you break into my room, pretending you’re worried about your brother, saying how important he is to you, when you obviously don’t even know him anymore because you can’t figure out why someone would want to be with him if it’s not for money? You can go fuck yourself.”

“Oh, can I?”

“You can get out of my room too.”   

Michael had the look of a man with no intention of going anywhere.   

“I’ve got to get ready to go to work―”

“Yes, taking apart stolen cars. Not exactly a job that keeps specific hours. I’m sure Reese will be forgiving if you’re a little late.”

Sam hated this. He hated that this man wanted to spook him and was doing such a good job of it. “I’ve got to get ready for work. I don’t have time to listen to some Francis Ford Coppola movie extra loosely threatening me to stop fucking his brother. Nick and I are together because we want to be together. You can take your opinions on it, your concerns and your questions, and shove them up your ass. Now get out.”

Slowly, Michael smiled the first honest looking smile since they’d started talking, that same toothy, crooked sort of smile that Nick had. 

Sam hated him even more for it. 

“And if I say no, will you call security to escort me out?”

“I wouldn’t bother them to come do something I can manage just fine on my own.”

“You know, you’ve got a pretty clean record, aside from some little juvenile delinquency back in High School, current career choices notwithstanding. And your grades? My god, I’ve never seen so many A’s.” He laughed, looking happy in a way that made all the earlier smiles and politeness blatant lies. “You’re obviously a good kid, so where the hell do you get the balls to threaten me?”

“Same place you got the nerve to come up here flashing a gun around and trying to tell me what I can and can’t do.”

“I know, I know it’s not exactly subtle,” he patted one hand against the gun resting against his ribs, “but it helps get my point across.”

“Yeah. Point loud and clear.” Sam pointed at the door, just in case the other man forgot where it was. “And out you go.”

“I want you to stop seeing my brother.”

Sam laughed in an way that conveyed no happiness whatsoever.

“I’m serious.”

“Yeah, and I’m starting to wonder if this is the same talk you gave to Nick’s fiance before you slept with her.” It was a bad idea to lash out, and Sam knew that, but Sam also had never responded well to being told what to do. “Because if that’s part of your plan here I’ve got to tell you, man, you’re not my type.”

Michael cocked his head to one side, ignoring that last jibe in favor of asking, “Oh, I’d love to hear whatever skewed version of the Lilith mess my brother decided to tell you.”

“You were sleeping with his fiance,” Sam felt so defensive on his friend’s behalf. “That’s not one of those things that gets different versions. You really screwed up that being a ‘good big brother’ job, and you don’t get to come here today and try to make up for that by threatening me.”

“I’d been seeing Lilith for over two years by the time that Nick met her. They started dating behind my back, they started fucking behind my back, and I only found out about it all when the two of them started talking about getting married.”

As important as that news seemed to be, and as disappointed as Sam wanted to feel in Nick, all he could think was that these idiot twins really needed to work on their communication.  

“Apparently Nick had been counting on Lilith to break up with me, and she hadn’t because her and I were still having fun―but she told him that she had.” Michael had the tired sort of smile of a man who had been very wronged but had come to terms with it.  “I didn’t sleep with my brother’s fiance. I was sleeping with the same girl that I’d been with for years. And that’s the part that Nick likes to leave out when he’s feeling so so very tragic… still… after ten goddamn years.”

It didn’t feel fair that Sam had almost instantly decided that Nick had obviously learned from the mistakes of his youth and should be forgiven, but still wanted to be mad at Michael for doing the same thing… apparently with the same woman. 

Maybe Sam was a little biased.   

Then again, Nick had never quietly threatened him with a gun, or tried to bully him.

“Maybe I’m not the best big brother,” Michael shrugged, “but I am still very protective and don’t want to watch my favorite person in the whole world fall completely apart again.” 

It took up until that moment for Sam to realize that this whole time he’d been talking to a version of Dean― except Dean knew better than to try and pull this kind of nonsense.

“If you have problems with who your brother decides to see, then go take it up with him― because I need to get to work and you need to go home and rethink some of your life choices. You let yourself in, you can let yourself out.”

Sam took his most beaten up coat, that never minded extra stains, and left for the garage. It was a cocky move, just betting that Michael wouldn’t do anything for fear of retaliation from Nick― but all Sam could do was go off how Dean would have acted and trust that he wouldn’t end up at the bottom of a river with a hole in his head. 

Once he was safely on the subway, breathing a little easier once that adrenaline rush of pride started to fade. There had been no reason to get defensive, and no reason to lie, because he  _ wasn’t  _ dating Nick in the first place. But if he was? Then fuck anyone who thought that they could just show up and tell him what to do. 

He pulled out his cell phone while waiting for the next subway train to arrive. Reception down here wasn’t great, but the call still went through, Nick answering with a confused, “Hi there?”

“Hey, your brother was in my room.”

“Ok… I’m not sure what to do with that information.” Nick was hard to hear over the distant whoosh of air displaced through the tunnels, and the chatter of the three dozen or so people also on the platform waiting for their ride.

With irritation still firmly in control of his actions, Sam recounted the last half hour of his life, leaving out the talk about the woman that Nick and his brother had shared. That was really none of Sam’s business. He’d leave it alone.

Nick had almost no reaction though, “I’ll talk to him.”

“You’ll talk to him?” Sam rubbed at his jaw. “Great. Thanks. While you’re at it, you wanna explain to the rest of your family that the next one who shows up where I like to sleep is getting punched in the jaw, no questions asked.”

“Even Anna?”

“You know, if your baby sister is suddenly in my room with a gun? Yeah. I’ll suspend the ‘don’t hit girls’ rule. What the hell is wrong with your family?”

“We’re protective.”

“I got that when you tried to kill Dean the other night.”

“I’m not going to apologize―”

“I know. I know. He cheated on your baby brother. I’m going to ask again, what the hell is wrong with your family?”

“We’re angry, protective, hypocrites?” Nick offered. 

They really, really were though, and Sam felt himself smile at just how honest Nick really was sometimes. “Tell your brother to get bent, alright?”

“I’ll certainly consider leading with that.”

“I’ve got to go. My train’s here. Bye.” Sam said in a rush as the subway cars very loudly pulled to a screeching stop across from him, making all other conversation impossible. He hung up and went on the rest of the way to work. 

Gutting four cars took until nearly sunrise, and the sleepy subway and bus ride back to the dorms gave Sam some quiet time to remember that he hated this side job. Aside from the fact that all that car maintenance knowledge passed down from Bobby and Dean was never meant to be used like this, he wasn’t particularly proud of himself. The stack of bills shoved into the pocket of his jeans reminded him why he kept going back. 

Even if it didn’t pay as well, Sam was much happier to head to the bar after a solid nap. It would be a full ten hour shift, five in the evening until three in the morning, every part of that sounded awful, but like clean, honest work. 

Tessa was there at the counter when he came in and she greeted him with a grin so wide there was no way that today hadn’t been hell. In Sam she saw reinforcements and hope, and if nothing else it was good to be appreciated?

“Hey, Sasquatch.” She beamed up at him, “Welcome home.”

“Yeah, thanks,” he held one arm out to her and they shared a short half hug. “I miss anything good?”

“Good? No. But there was a fist fight Christmas eve that got pretty out of hand and the police had to be called.”

“Fun.”

“Super fun.” She collected up a tray full of empty glasses and started to head back to the sink. “We missed you around here.”

The bartender that Sam was relieving was a man that he’d only ever met in passing since he started here. They waved, bumped fists, traded till drawers, and Sam was left to rule over his slightly tipsy kingdom. There was less of the college emblem sweatshirt wearing crowd filling the bar in the week between the two winter holidays. Which would have made it a slow night, with just a couple regulars,  if it wasn’t for some kind of friend/family reunion of about twenty people who kept ordering a new bottle of very cheap wine every twenty minutes or so. They were a happy group, but loud. 

A bit of a rush came in after dinner time, most of the seats taken and Sam was just sort of lost in the rhythm of making drinks, with only a little down time in between now and then to clean some glasses or catch up with some of the regulars who wanted to know how his trip home had been.

He was counting out someone’s change when Tessa pinched his elbow. “Hi. Thanks. Why?” He handed over the cash and looked down at the little brunet. 

“Can you take these.” She nodded to the tray on her hip and the two drinks balanced there.

“Someone giving you trouble?” Sam looked around for the culprit, but he only made the drinks, he didn’t take the orders, so he only saw a sea of unimportant faces.

“Yeah, that rum and coke drinking hipster scum is back at the corner of the bar.” She rolled her eyes. “He’s got a friend with him and they’re both awful. Please don’t make me go back.” 

Sam caned his neck to look over the bustle of people to see a familiar blonde man sitting near the wall. His very favorite rum and coke drinking jerk, back in the dark framed glasses he’d been wearing the first night he’d been in the bar, sitting back in the corner, talking to someone beside him with a hook of a smile.

Secretly delighted, Sam played it cool, sighing and shrugging, “I’ll take care of ‘em for you.”

Tessa passed over the tray. “Thanks, Sam. I owe you one,” and then she was off to go fetch another bottle of wine for the ongoing party.

Across the bar, Sam made eye contact with Nick and did his best to look very disappointed, shaking his head. 

Nick grinned. 

With the appletini and the rum and coke in tow, Sam  walked down the bar, hesitating when he remember that Tessa had mentioned a ‘friend’. Nick looked alone at first, but only because the intended recipient of the appletini had been too short for Sam to see at first glance. 

“Hey, Gabe.” Cautious, Sam set down the neon green martini in front of Nick’s younger brother, mixed feelings all over the place.

Gabriel raised his drink, winking. “Hey, pretty boy.”

Those mixed feelings started to sort themselves out and with a sigh Sam handed the rum and coke to Nick, trying to sound as casual as possible with an understated, “Hey.”

“Hey,” Nick repeated―or his mouth formed the word at least, the sound lost under the noise of the room. He almost smiled up at Sam, the edge of his mouth notably bruised, lower lip very freshly split. No smile, but he did wink. Just like Gabe had. He looked so different with his glasses on, older, and like he could pass for a responsible adult.

Sam had left Nick alone for nearly twenty-four hours and in that time the man had almost managed to keep himself in one piece. Worrying felt like the right response, but at the same time a dramatic eye roll would have been just as appropriate. 

Nick helped make up Sam’s mind by raising his voice enough to ask, “Do you have a kiss for Daddy?” 

To which Sam almost turned and walked away. But Nick was tilting his head side to side, pointing to each cheek in turn... and ok, Sam could try that weird European cheek kissing thing. It was likely that Gabe didn’t know that Sam knew about the bet and that Nick was hoping that they could simply keep the whole ‘we’re dating’ thing going―and if not, it was just kissing air that had touched Nick’s cheeks. Reluctantly, he leaned over the bar and started to laugh when Nick honestly looked  _ shocked _ before bracing his arms against the bar coming out of his seat to meet Sam halfway.   

Under the bar scents of alcohol and other humans, Sam realized he could smell Nick, their cheeks brushing lightly, the other man’s stubble rough. Such a little thing to notice, and Sam wished that he didn’t, and he wished that the noticing didn’t make the small of his back feel tight. 

Wanting to distract himself instead of addressing that strange little tickle, Sam caught Nick’s chin before the other man could sit down. Frowning, he lightly pressed a thumb into the new cut. “What’s this?”

Nick’s pale eyes were the color of the bar light, bright and wide. “I, um, I visited Mike last night.” The way he said it made it obvious that he didn’t mean Gabriel. 

“I asked you to  _ talk  _ to him, not hit him with your face.” Sam let go of Nick, letting the man sink down onto his bar stool. “Did you win at least?”

Making a face, Nick sort of shrugged, picking up his drink. 

Gabriel snorted lightly and pointed with his drink to his older brother. “You can call it whatever you want. It was beautiful and I’m glad I got to see it.”

Sam wanted to ask, only someone at the other end of the bar was waving to get his attention, so he just shook his head at the two Novaks and went back to work.  

He made a few drinks, helped a few customers on their way out with their tabs, and was at least slightly startled when Tessa was suddenly beside him again, pinching his elbow. 

“Hi. Thanks.” He pulled his arm away, laughing. “Why?”

“I did  _ not _ just see you makin’ kissy faces with Mr. Rum and Coke.”

“He’s a friend.”

She raised her eyebrows, grinning. “Yeah. I could see that.”

Sam could only shrug, knowing that the real explanation wouldn’t ease her curiosity. “His name’s Nick, and he’s harmless,” mostly.

“Well, then he’s all yours.” She laughed and motioned grandly towards that corner of the bar. “Him and his friend, and you know, really anyone who sits in that section?”

“Yeah, yeah. You can take care of the rest of the room, I’ll deal with all the long faces at the counter.”

“Thank you,” Tessa sang as she drifted away, back to her dishes and whatever else she was working on until someone new came into the bar and needed her to take their order.

Once Sam felt semi confident that no one would need him for a few minutes, he made his way back to the corner of the room. Gabriel was explaining something with an overabundance of hand gestures, Nick smiling a careful smile as he listened. And if the two brothers hadn’t proved themselves time and time again to just be awful, Sam might have been reluctant to interrupt.   

He rested his elbows on the bar and leaned down to be a little closer, like he was part of their conversation instead of looming menacingly over them. “So, what are you two delinquents doing here?”

Casual as you like, Nick reached out, skimming a finger over Sam’s wrist before linking their fingers together. “Weren’t we supposed to get a drink after work?”

“ _ After _ ,” Sam let the word stand a moment, running a thumb over Nick’s knuckles. He had no idea why they were holding hand, and he had no idea why he was letting it happen. “I don’t get off until three. You’re  _ not _ hanging out until then.”

“No. No.” Gabriel eased, “We’re going to go get some dinner, he just wanted to come in and make pretty eyes at you.” He snickered into his drink before pointing out, “You two disgust me by the way.”

Nick nearly grinned, ducking his head and not defending himself at all.

“I’ve had this perfect mental image of you for years now, Nick. You’re supposed to be a mean son of a bitch with a fast temper, and in the last twenty four hours I’ve seen you playing with children, talking with Mike instead of hitting for once in your life,  _ talking _ to Mom, and now holding hands with your boyfriend. What the hell happened to you, man? You used to be scary. And, Sam, I’m blaming you.”

“Yeah?”

“He’s been a real wimp since he came home and I’ve got to blame someone.”

Sam chuckled but Nick managed to look slightly offended as he offered, “Would it make you feel better if I took that little decorative pick from your drink and stabbed you in the leg with it?” 

“Aw, Luci, that’d be  _ great _ .” Gabriel rolled his eyes, finishing off the last of his drink before pushing the glass as far away from his big brother as he could without pushing it off the counter.  “But maybe later, m’kay?”

“M’hmm.” Nick nodded, humming softly to his younger brother like he had every intention of stabbing Gabe with a plastic toothpick later tonight, a feeling that was at odds with the way that he continued to lightly play with Sam’s fingers. This awful slow, feather light touch that felt increasingly more intimate the longer it went on… here in public… where anyone at all could see it and get the wrong idea.

“Ok, Luci, I’ve got to get back to work.” Sam only sort of had other things to do, things that didn’t involve being ever so lightly tickled by a man with a very crooked smile. 

“Alright.”

“You’re going to have to let go of my hand…” 

Gabriel snorted softly. “You two suck.”

Very reluctantly, Nick let go, his fingers dragging slowly up Sam’s arm before retreating to wrap around his mostly untouched drink. “I’ll be back later tonight so I can sit here and watch you close up like we used to do.”

‘ _ Like they used to do _ ’ was a strange way to refer to the one single time that Nick had been in here before. It sounded kind of sweet though. Kind of romantic. Which was what they were going for, for Gabriel’s benefit. It was easy enough for Sam to shrug it off, let it happen, no harm done. Not denying but also trying not to add anything to this stupid bet that he’d been tricked into being part of. 

Except when the older man blew a soft kiss in his direction, Sam might have forgotten that he was trying to stay a passive bystander to all of this.

He blew a kiss back. 

Nick’s eyes went a touch wide, a far too happy little laugh making him so easy to hate right then. 

Sam retreated back towards the alcohol and cash register; to the nice customers who didn’t hold his hand or say things that made him want to blow kisses across the bar like an idiot.

He lost track of time making drinks and making hollow, happy conversations with customers who all seemed very done with the holidays. Usually Sam would be on their side. Sympathy was easy enough. It was hard being away from family this time of year, it was hard working during the holidays, it was hard when everyone around you seemed so damn full of holiday cheer you wanted to smash their collective faces in. Secretly though, Sam was happy. Happy that Dean had followed him home, happy that there was an awful blonde man at the end of the bar winking at him every time he looked over. Happy that he wouldn’t have to head straight back to the dorms after work―he had a date. 

No. 

Not a date. 

He was going out with a friend. 

He was  _ supposed _ to be making a couple dry Manhattans, but instead he was loosely holding the cocktail shaker and staring numbly into the void as he silently recoiled in horror at the fact that he’d mentally referred to having a drink with Nick as ‘a date’. 

“ _ Mon chou _ ?”

Sam almost dropped the shaker. 

With a calming breath, he fixed a smile and turned to face Nick: who had an uncanny way of sneaking up when he wanted to. “Yeah?”

“We’ve got to leave to make our reservation,  _ mon amour _ . I just wanted to make sure I said goodbye first.” 

“Yeah, alright.” The tightness in Sam’s chest eased out and he laughed. “I’ll see you in a few hours?”

“You’ll see us both,” Gabriel grinned, leaning into Nick, half in front of his older brother as he made a blatant show of not wanting to be ignored. 

“I-I didn’t know you were coming too?” It wasn’t that Sam didn’t like Gabe, only that… well, that he really didn’t like Gabe. Perhaps if they’d met under better, less ass gropey circumstances, then they probably would have been friends.  

“He’s not.” Annoyed, Nick pulled an arm around his younger brother’s shoulders, tugging him sideways and hissing, “you’re  _ not _ .”

“But I could.” Gabriel was all teeth and menace. “I  _ love _ drinks at three in the morning. I mean, we’re all family and friends here. More than friends in your case  _ apparently _ . We should be celebrating. Catching up. All that good stuff.”

“There is no ‘good stuff’,” Nick argued. “There’s only drinks that you’re not invited to. Now come on. Dinner―before they give away our reservation.”

Sam waved and watched them go, relaxing as he went back to making those cocktails without that ‘I’m being watched’ feeling that itched between his shoulders. 

He handed the drinks off to Tessa and made his way down the bar, cleaning up Gabe and Nick’s glasses, frowning to see that his friend hadn’t even finished half of the rum and coke. Why the man kept ordering a drink that he didn’t seem to enjoy was beyond Sam. He dumped the dark drink down the sink and set the glasses aside to be cleaned later. So easily falling into the rhythm, doing his best not to think too hard about the end of his night that was still a few hours off.  

  
  
  



	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, after much debate in the writing process, this chapter falls midway in the previous one. This is what happened to Nick after Sam got out of the car and before he came to the bar with Gabe.  
> This is a super serious chapter and at no point has mentions of video games, or excessive use of the words 'bonk' or 'owwie', and no one drinks chocolate milk XD super-duper serious stuff
> 
> Which is all a lie. 
> 
> This is a surprisingly sweet chapter that I didn't intend to write quite this tenderly, and I love it and you're welcome

The night before: or, How Nick got his split lip

Nick hadn’t been anticipating a call from Sam that night, or any night actually. Who even calls anymore unless it was an emergency? Texting was fine. Really, when he heard his phone go off his first thought was that it was one of his brothers and that he was once again in trouble for something that he probably deserved to be in trouble for. 

It was a bit of a surprise and a relief to see Sam’s name on the screen. Though, it had only been a couple house since he’d dropped the kid off, and there was no way that anyone could miss Nick that much that they’d need to talk again so soon. Nick answered with a questioning, “Hi there?” 

It was loud where Sam was, which probably meant that he was on his way to work or already there, either way, he was hard to hear when he said, “Hey, your brother was in my room.”

“Ok… I’m not sure what to do with that information.” Nick had three brothers, none of which should have known where Sam’s room was, much less have gone to it. 

“I went up to my dorm and Michael was just sitting there at the desk like a Bond villain.”

“Wait, he was  _ in _ your room when you got there?”

“Yes, what―”

“I thought you meant that one of my brothers had gone  _ through _ your room and touched your stuff.” Not that it was a better option, and Nick couldn’t think of why anyone of them would have reason to rifle through Sam’s things. His mind had, nonetheless, jumped to the less threatening conclusion first. 

“Ok, first off, all of you suck. I don’t even know how he figured out where I live, but it’s creepy and probably illegal. Second, your brother is  _ way _ more protective of you than Dean is of me, and that’s not healthy, Nick.”

Nick pinched the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes, doing his best to keep his anger at his own brother firmly tucked away, because showing it to Sam would do no good at all. “You ok?”

“Course I am.”

That was a relief that did nothing to ease the tightness between Nick’s shoulders. “I’ll talk to him.”

“You’ll talk to him?” Sarcasm made the question thick. It was almost nice to hear that Sam could get angry at a multitude of people, or at least at multiple Novaks, and not just Nick. “Great. Thanks. While you’re at it, you wanna explain to the rest of your family that the next one who shows up where I like to sleep is getting punched in the jaw, no questions asked.”

“Even Anna?”

“You know, if your baby sister is suddenly in my room with a gun? Yeah. I’ll suspend the ‘don’t hit girls’ rule. What the hell is wrong with your family?”

Nick let his head fall back against the back of the couch, sighing as he answered truthfully, “We’re protective.”

“I got that when you tried to kill Dean the other night.”

“I’m not going to apologize―”

“I know. I know. He cheated on your baby brother. I’m going to ask again, what the hell is wrong with your family?”

“We’re angry, protective, hypocrites?” Nick offered as he got up, looking for his jacket. 

Over the phone, Sam laughed softly, a bit of that tension leaving him. “Tell your brother to get bent, alright?”

It was high on the list of things that Nick would be telling Michael tonight. “I’ll certainly consider leading with that.”

Loud sounds drowned out most of Sam’s words as the kid rushed to say, “I’ve got to go. My train’s here. Love you. Bye.”

“Love you too. Bye.” Nick hung up and then blinked at his phone, not at all sure that either of them had just said what it sounded like they’d said. Sam had probably been on autopilot after two weeks with his family and throwing around the little phrase so easily. 

Nick had only said it on reflex. 

This was one of those thing like when you’re buying tickets to a movie and the person behind the counter says ‘enjoy your movie’ and you instinctively say ‘yeah, you too’ and then realise what an idiot you are and you slink away awkwardly. That was definitely what that was. And they would laugh about it uncomfortably later. 

Much later.

If they ever mentioned it at all. 

He had Michael’s address from that eternally long text conversation that they’d shared over Christmas day. He also had the presence of mind to call up Gabriel and ask him to meet up at Mike’s because a witness made it less likely that Nick would end up killing his older brother in front of his wife and kids. As much of an ass as Gabe could be, and as much of an instigator as he usually was with any kind of problem, he’d never liked to see his brothers fighting and usually did a good job keeping them from hitting each other too much or too hard. 

Mike had moved himself into a nice neighborhood less than five miles from the house that they’d all grown up in. In fact, it looked an awful lot like a smaller version of their childhood home, two story, brick, tall gates, oak trees, round driveway, and Nick found that all more amusing than he should. His big brother had never been a fan of change. 

Leaning out the window of his car, Nick hit the intercom button at the gates and waited.

After just long enough that he started to get annoyed, the little speaker buzzed and a woman’s voice came on, “Hello?”

“Is Mikey home? This is his brother Nick.” He wondered who he was talking to. If it was his sister in law or a maid. The voice wasn’t all that recognisable, but then again, it was coming through a box the size of a piece of toast. 

“Oh!” The woman sounded surprised. “Of course, come on in. Michael said you might be coming by in the next few days.” A buzzer sounded and the gates slid smoothly open, letting Nick onto the grounds to park as crooked as he could up next to the front doors. 

The drive hadn’t been properly shoveled today, though there were a few slushy tracks where cars had come and gone in the last few hours, and Nick had to tromp through near knee deep snow to get to the porch. He knocked on the door while shifting from foot to foot, hating that there was now snow in his ratty and very damp tennis shoes. 

The door opened and a long legged, big eared dog was there to greet him. Mittens, apparently was his name according to the shared texts over Christmas. He didn’t look like a Mittens. The beast didn’t bark, but oh, it looked at Nick and gave him a very thorough sniffing before sitting down at Bella’s side. Michael’s wife stood there, smiling up at him like a woman who had no idea what she was getting herself in for. Nick sort of liked that she opened her own door, he also liked that she didn’t try to hug him or anything like that. They were family, but more than that they were still strangers. 

“He’s upstairs with the girls,” she let him in and closed the door behind them. The last time Nick had seen her she’d been dressed for the anniversary dinner, hair and makeup all done perfectly, simple but sleek black dress. This evening she was significantly more casual, hair in a loose bun, tight jeans and a button down shirt that looked sized for a man, the sleeves rolled up to her elbows. She smelled like Michael’s aftershave, which meant it was likely her husband’s shirt she was swimming in, and it suited her better than the dress. “Someone bought them a video game for Christmas and I haven’t been able to pull the three of them off it in days.”

Nick sort of smiled, not really sure how else to respond to such an outrageous statement. The idea of his older brother playing a video game, one that would hold the interest of five year old girls, was a fairly crazy sort of idea.

Bella looked off towards the stairs then back at Nick. “Drinks?”

Which was not what he’d come here for. Nick had this problem though, a problem with women and never being able to tell them ‘no’ to anything. So he followed Bella to the kitchen and appreciate the way that she simply waved towards the fridge like he was on his own to find whatever he wanted. 

She had two plastic cups already out on the counter, brightly colored twist on lids and a carton of chocolate milk. Apparently Nick’s unexpected arrival had interrupted some nighttime ritual. “Help yourself to whatever,” she screwed on the lids and smiled before walking out, Mittens on her heels, “I’ll send him down.”

Then Nick was left alone in a strange kitchen to find his own drink.

What sort of drink said ‘leave my fake boyfriend alone or I’ll break your face’?

Probably not chocolate milk, though it did look strangely good. 

He put the coffee pot on because it felt like the most serious option available to him, and if he poured a little bit of the chocolate milk into his coffee... well, Mike was taking his sweet time getting downstairs so he missed the small window in which he would have been able to get judgey.

By the time his big brother finally got his ass to the kitchen, Nick was already at the table, peacefully blowing on his coffee with a second mug sitting across from him. See, a responsible drink and a very reasonable setting that said clearly ‘we are about to have a serious talk’. Nick was trying his damndest to keep things under control and nonviolent until they had a mediator. 

Gabe was taking way too long.

“Sorry that took a second…” Michael stood there in the doorway watching Nick like he was a ghost. “I thought Bella was joking when she said you were down here.”

“You really thought you could show up in my boyfriend’s bedroom, apparently sitting at his desk like a Bond villain, and I  _ wouldn’t _ come to your place to ask you what the hell?”

“Nicky, he’s amazing.”

Of all the things that Nick had expected out of his brother’s mouth, that hadn’t even made the list.

Mike sat down and picked up the second coffee, glancing into it with only a moment’s suspicion. “Did you spit in this?”

“Did you threaten Sam?”

“Only a little,” and Mike sipped on his coffee knowing full well that the drink was slightly questionable at this point. “Nicky, he told me to fuck off and get out. He threatened me.”

That sounded like Sam, and Nick felt a strange beaming kind of pride in his friend’s fearlessness. “Good.”

“I took off my jacket and explained what I do for a living, and that kid, he looked me dead in the eye and threatened me.”

The fact that ‘I took off my jacket’ meant anything at all to Nick, that he knew full well what his older brother had done today, showed that they’d spent far too long together in their youth. “You pulled a gun on him?”

“It wasn’t loaded.” Michael rolled his eyes. “I put the clip in my pocket before I even went up to his room.”

And that was part of Sam’s day that hadn’t come up in their very short phone conversation. All Sam had said was that Mike had been in his room and was overly protective of Nick. How was a gun and a death threat not important enough for the kid to bring up? That funny proud feeling he’d had moments before ebbed. Sam wasn’t fearless. Sam was an idiot.

A beautiful idiot that Nick wasn’t even dating and shouldn’t be having any kinds of protective feelings over. Even still, he rubbed the knuckle of his thumb against an eye and grumbled, “Are we fifteen again? Did I miss the part where I needed you to step in and play scary big brother?”

“You never needed me, Nicky.” Michael managed to sound sad and proud like the jerk that he was. 

“Damn right.”

“No swearing where the girls might hear it,” he said the second most insane thing of the night.

“Oh my fucking stars. Heaven forbid your little angels, who’s shitty father has killed at least two dozen people, hear some god damn profanity.”

Mike slowly set his coffee down. “ _ Really _ ?”

“Look, I’m tryin’ real hard not to come across this table and feed you your teeth, so you’re just going to have to live with a little salty language.”

“You can be mad at me all you want―” Michael dropped his voice to a whisper, “but you watch your mouth. They hear everything and you never know when they’re sneaking up on you.”

The level of actual fear in his brother’s voice made Nick look around the corners of the room, half expecting to see a menacing child lurking there. Right on cue, a door on the far side of the kitchen opened, giving Nick a tickling feeling of creeping horror, because what the hell is wrong with kids―but then Gabriel came in and it became obvious that the room behind him was some sort of garage. 

“Gross,” Gabe showed a little too much teeth as he grimaced at the table. “You guys are here?” 

“Why the hell would you give him a key to your place?” Nick made a face too, teasing, appreciating the distraction. 

Michael just shrugged like he hadn’t been consulted on this choice and had no good explanation for it. 

With a sigh and a sniff of disdain, Gabe eyed the table. “What are we drinking, bitches?”

“Nick made coffee―”

“Oh, super serious coffee.” Their younger brother laughed and went to the fridge, pouring himself some chocolate milk. “And no one looks bruised or bleeding. We’re adulting real hard today, aren’t we?”

Just to be contradictory, Nick pulled up his shirt and showed off the horrifying dark bruise that Dean had given him two nights ago. It’s not that the man had hit him particularly hard (though he hadn’t held back either), Nick was simply a champ at heinous bruising.

“Yowza,” Gabe looked pained on his behalf, coming over to sit down. “That from you getting stabbed before you left? Shouldn’t that have healed up by now?”

Nick started to answer but Michael was raising his voice, “You got stabbed? When did you get stabbed? Are you alright?”

“No.” Nick rolled his eyes. “Sadly I died. Cassy wasn’t able to save me from that fatal stabbing. You didn’t even come to my funeral, you ass―and now I’ve got to haunt you.”

Annoyed, Michael just stared at him and waited for a real answer. 

“It was a few stitches. Not a big deal.” Nick paused when he heard the sound of small feet running around upstairs. “The bruise is from when I met the guy that’s been banging Cassy.” 

“And you’re first response at meeting the guy is hitting each other?” Michael looked more pained than curious as to how Nick might have found this elusive man. 

“I mean, I could have broken into his place and threatened him with a gun if he didn’t stop diddling my little brother… but I’ve always liked the more direct approach.” Nick watched his brother over their coffee, quiet and accusing, making sure Mike knew that they weren’t done with their earlier discussion. 

Gabriel turned from Nick to Mike and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Mikey, you didn’t―”

“I only wanted to make sure that me and this sudden and unexpected Sam were on the same page. I wasn’t  _ really  _ going to shoot him.”

“You  _ do _ know that they aren’t really dating, right?” Gabriel didn’t let the cat out of the bag so much as he just dumped it violently out onto the floor. “The day he came home I bet Nick he couldn’t take this leggy bartender I’d just met to Mom and Dad’s thing. Him and Sam are just messing around to ruffle everyone’s feathers.”

It was obvious that Michael wanted to argue, or at least ask some serious questions. He settled for a deep sigh as he lowered his head. “There’s something very wrong with the two of you.”

“Wrong with  _ me _ ?” Gabriel put a hand to his chest. “How dare you. I’m not the one attempting to seduce away a sweet innocent college boy just to prove I can.” 

“You can hate all you want, Gabe, it won’t change the fact that you’re losing.” Nick didn’t even know how to win, he’d lost track at this point of what the goal to this mess even was. He was almost positive that he’d run his mouth saying that all he had to do was flash some cash and he could have anyone he wanted following him around like a puppy, and Gabe had argued that Nick was too much of a cold hearted bastard at this point to be of interest to anyone. 

Which meant the joke was on both of them, because Sam wasn’t interested in money, and he seemed rather content being friends with a cold hearted bastard for some stupid reason.

Nick wasn’t about to defend or explain himself. “What’s going on between Sam and me is none of your business, Mike.”

Apparently this fact was up for debate, because Mike pressed onward with the very disappointed question of, “Does this stupid bet have anything to do with why you gave him all that money, Nick?”

“My money, my business.” Nick sipped on his coffee with an air of superiority.

Mike’s hands covered his face and the irritation bled off of him. “You’re right.”

Two words. Two words that were enough to make Nick choke on his drink. Sputtering, wiping coffee from his chin, he struggled to ask, “You wanna say that again? I don’t think I heard you right.”

“You’re right. What you do with your money isn’t my business.” Mike’s hands had come half way down off his face, enough to show just how hard and cold his eyes could be. “And I’m going to tell you what I told Sam. I want you to stop seeing him.”

“Oh, fuck you―”

“He’s too good for you, Nick.” Michael said something that, in all his years of being an overprotective brother, he’d never once said before. Even if Nick hadn’t ever asked to be watched over by an oppressively well meaning big brother, he’d sort of grown used to it. Expected to be coddled. Mike always had a lot of things to say from his superior soap box, but this was different. “That kid’s got some feelings stronger than ‘like’ for you. He stood up to me. He defended you―and here you are just trying to win a bet with Gabe. You’ve always been selfish and proud, Nicky, but you didn’t used to drag other people down with you.”

Nick liked words. He liked to hide behind them and use them to keep himself safe. It wasn’t often that he didn’t know what to say.

“Playing around with someone’s feeling just to prove you can is…” Michael looked between Nick and Gabe, making sure that they both felt the pressure coming from his moral high ground. “You both need to stop.”

A great point.

A point that Nick hadn’t ever really looked at because once he started to examine how and why this got started in the first place guilt started to creep in. He hated feeling guilty. “Sam knows all about the bet. No one is playing with anyone’s feelings, so back off, Dear Abby.”

“You told him?” Gabriel came up under his small cloud of shame. “That’s against the rules, Luci.”

“No. It’s not. I told you everyone wants money. Just money. So that’s what I offered him for his company at Mom and Dad’s thing, and he was fine with it.” Nick didn’t feel like it was important to point out that he’d only just told Sam a couple days ago, and the kid hadn’t exactly been thrilled to be involved in a petty little bet between two brothers. 

It was obvious that Gabe wanted to argue at the breach of whatever rules governed these sorts of awful types of bets, but two small children came stampeding into the room, wearing matching nightgowns in purple and orange. They ran to Gabe, giggling, climbing his chair, and him, like a jungle gym. 

“Hey, Thing One and Thing Two.” Gabe helped them to stand on his lap, their chubby little arms around his neck. “Shouldn’t you be getting ready for bed?”

“No. It’s not time for bed,” the creature in purple explained with a frown, pushing a mess of dark curls from her face.“Can, um, can we have candy?”

Her sister broke out in a wide grin and began chanting, “Candy, Candy, Candy.”

Laughing, Gabe got into the inner pocket of his jacket and produced two mini candy canes, like he’d come prepared for this exact situation. 

After a bit of help unwrapping the candy, the two settled a bit and seemed to notice that there was a stranger at the table. Purple child apparently was the leader and took it as her job to interrogate the guest. “Who are you?” 

“I’m Nick.”

“That’s like my name.”

“Yeah?”

“Nicole.” She told him. “That’s like your name and then an ‘olle’.”

“Yeah.” He had no idea how to talk to children, but was almost positive that this wasn’t it.

“Nicky,” Michael said and it took Nick a second to realise that his brother wasn’t talking to him, but to the child. “This is mine and Uncle Gabe and Uncle Cas’ brother. You remember the picture of me and the Uncle Nick who lives far away?”

“With blue hair?” Nicole looked skeptical, pulling her candy cane out of her mouth with a little  _ pop. _ “But he’s old and his hair is yellow.”

“ ‘s yellow,” the one in orange nodded her agreement.

“The picture with blue hair is from when we were little,” Michael smiled at his offspring so warm and tender that it felt unnatural. “Me and him are twins, just like you two, even if we don’t look the same―”

“And you’re boys… and old,” Nicole pointed out.

“Really old,” the second child added unnecessarily.

“They’re so old,” Gabriel agreed, laughing, keeping his arms loosely around the children standing on his lap.

“Thanks.” Michael didn’t look like he needed the help. “Can you girls tell him hello like you’re supposed to when you meet a new adult?”

Both children clamored off of Gabriel, and by the wince on the man’s face apparently the girls weren't all that gentle about it. The two came to stand beside Nick, both holding their hands out expectantly.

Glancing over at his big brother for a hint as to what was going on, Nick watched Mike subtly hold out his right hand and shake it like he was greeting an invisible businessman. 

“Hi,” Nick took both girls’ hands in his, making it as tangled and awkward as he could. “Nice to meet you.”

If their tangled arms and the uneven wiggling of limbs was strange for them, they hid it well. Both kids aggressively shaking hands back, grinning like this was fun for them. 

“Hi,” orange dressed child told him. “ ‘s nice to meet you.”

“Are you Michelle?” 

She nodded, a child of few words. 

“Alright,” Nick kept shaking hands, because it seemed to make the children happy and he didn’t know what else to do.

Nicole began a very sudden onslaught of, “Santa gave us a video game for- for Christmas, an’ it’s got magical horses and you race them and can brush them, and use fire stones or-or-or wind stones to make them go real fast. And Michelle always beats me because she’s good at it, and I always beat Papa because he’s really bad at games be- because his hands don’t fit on the controller, but you have different hands I can teach you to play if you wanna, and I won’t beat you the first time so you don’t feel sad for losing.”

Nick blinked, and started to politely decline as soon as he figured out what he’d just been asked―but somehow he found himself sitting upstairs on the floor with a tiny child on either side of him as they tried to teach him how to brush a fake video game horse without making the horse hate him. 

He did his best to ignore Mike and Gabe sitting on the couch behind them, quietly talking about a ‘job’ next week that Nick didn’t want to know the details on. Not his business, not his problem, not anymore. Right now he had a pink and green magical horse to brush and feed, and then apparently he would be racing it against his niece's horses and then god help them all. 

The first two races he lost miserably, and that’s when he realised that games were incredibly different than when he’d played them as a child, or the little screen poke ones that he played on his phone or computer from time to time. Magical horses were far and beyond a relaxing game of solitaire.

“You don’t have to let us win, Uncle Nick,” the one in orange told him, and Nick had already forgotten which kid was wich. “You can play for real.”

If only he could.

“This is a little harder than the games I’m used to.” The Mario Brothers games of his youth had nothing on Magical Horse Racing.

“You’re holding the controller wrong.” Purple dressed child pointed out, though how someone could hold the little plastic stick ‘wrong’ was beyond him. Then the child, no doubt in an effort to help him out, slid over to his lap and wrapped her small and slightly sticky hands around his. “I’ll help you. Dad, race my horse, but don’t do it wrong. Ok?”

Dutifully, Michael picked up the abandoned controller. “You ok there, Nick?”

“Um, yeah?” There was a boney child ass digging into one of his legs and she was surprisingly heavy for someone so tiny. “Apparently we’re going to Patrick Swayze this.”

“What’s a Patrick Swayze?” The child on his leg asked, looking up at him with enormously round eyes. 

“He’s a guy in a movie…” Nick didn’t know how to explain this to a child. “He plays a ghost and helps his wife make clay pots… ok. Can we race. This is weird.”

Gabriel probably enjoyed that race more than anyone else; cheering happily for whoever was winning. Though Nick didn’t lose the first race, he was fairly certain it was because Mike took pity on them and kept running his own horse into walls. Two more races and Nick was losing less badly, his little niece yelling super helpful things at him like, “No! The other side. Go to the trees. No the other trees, the one with leaves,” as she did her best to steer them towards the finish line.

It took nearly half an hour before Nick was able to taste the sweetness of victory. The niece on his lap screeching happily that they’d won (it had obviously been killing her to lose race after race after race). She turned around on his lap and violently threw her arms around his neck. It would have been a nice hug if not for the accidental headbutt right to his face. 

“Owie,” the child sat back, pressing both hands to her forehead and pouting. “Ow,” she repeated, her eyes getting wet. 

“Hey, you’re ok.” Nick soothed, not at all sure how to handle this. “It was just a bonk.” He looked desperately up towards Michael, asking his brother for help for the first time in nearly forever.

Michael was already holding his arms out to his sniffling child. “You’re ok, Nicky. It was just a bonk. Come here… Uncle Nick, you’re bleeding.” He sounded so calm, but his eyes were dark with worry.

His mouth did hurt, but he’d just had a child’s head rammed into it, so it wasn’t all that surprising. He licked his lower lip and tasted blood and  _ sighed _ . He tried to get up, but suddenly found both small children swarming him, fussing. 

“Oh no,” the one in orange said, face going pale. “You- you need a bandaid.”

“You need a kiss from your mommy,” the other child told him with such wisdom, her own injury forgotten. “It’s ok if you need to cry.”

Gabe was just there with a handful of tissues, pressing them into Nick’s hand. “God, you bleed like a stuck pig. I forgot about that.”

“Thanks.” Nick grumbled, holding the tissues to his aggressively bleeding lip. It didn’t even hurt that bad, but it must look awful; his little nieces watching him with quiet horror and curiosity. “I’m ok,” he promised them both. 

Neither of them seemed to believe him, because he got a double hug around his neck. Tiny children pressing on on both sides, so carefully, and smelling like peppermint. Nick kind of hated it? Just a tiny bit. He also hated how he didn’t hate it as much as he should. 

“Thank you. Hey, go see if you two can help Uncle Gabe find me a bandaid, ok?” Nick shook them off and watched them drag Gabriel out of the room, very into their appointed quest. He let his head fall back against the couch, closing his eyes and appreciating the momentary quiet (aside from the very happy ‘you won’ music coming out of the video game). “How bad is it?”

Michael loomed over him, hand over Nick’s, pulling back the damp tissues. “I’ve seen worse,” was the prognosis as he let Nick resume applying pressure. “Do you like him?”

Frowning and tasting blood, Nick looked at his brother. “The horse?”

“The Sam.”

Nick grunted, not liking the probing question the first moment that they found themselves alone. 

“You can lie to Gabe all you want, but I know you.”

“Oh, you do?”

Warm and gentle, Michael put a hand on Nick’s shoulder and it was a struggle not to shrug it off and scoot away. “You wouldn’t be so protective and defensive of him if you didn’t have your reasons.” 

Nick grunted again, not liking the way that his older brother had started to smile at him. 

“He is a fairly impressive kind of wonderful. Fearless and sarcastic. I wouldn’t get too judgy if you told me you’d accidently sort of fallen for him while trying to win your bet with Gabe.”

Nick really resented the way that their years apart hadn’t changed how easily his big brother could read him. “Oh, shut up.”

Tiny gasps came from the doorway, nieces flanking Gabriel, looking shocked. 

“You can’t say ‘shut up’,” the purple one whispered in horror. “It’s a bad word.”

“ _ Really _ ?” Nick looked to Michael for confirmation, knowing full well that they’d both been saying things a lot worse than ‘shut up’ by the time they were the same age as these little princesses. 

“So is  _ ‘stupid’ _ ,” she told him, a tiny smile creeping in.

The one in the orange nightgown pursed her lips before whispering, “ _ butts _ .” 

“Alright, alright,” Michael got off the couch. “Gabe will give Uncle Nick his bandaid, I think it’s time for you two to go brush your teeth and pick out a bedtime story.”

The instantly started to protest, but Michael just scooped them both up, effortless, one in each arm as he took them off down the hall. 

“Hey, you almost made it through the whole visit without injury.” Gabe congratulated, flopping onto the couch, offering no bandaid.

“I’ll pat myself on the back later.” He promised.

“You and Mikey alright?” Gabriel asked tentatively. “I mean, you two were just talking when I got here, and I didn’t mean to take so long, but some of the streets are still closed from the storm.”

Nick took a slow breath, answering honestly though reluctantly, “we’re... ok.”

“Yeah?” Gabe laughed a little too sharply. “Since when?” 

“I’m not overselling this. We’re  _ ok _ . I didn’t say we were hugging and sharing our feelings,” Nick grumbled. No one had apologized, they weren’t ‘good’... they were just this side of ‘ok’. 

‘ _ Ok _ ’ was far more than was expected considering the situation.

“He really threaten Sam with a gun?” Gabe asked quietly, glancing towards the door like he expected them to be overheard.

“You know Mikey. He’s just doing his overprotective big brother thing that I never signed up for.” Despite Mike being  _ everyone’s _ big brother, Nick had always been the only one that Mike so violently protected. Anna, Gabe, and Cassy all just got normal levels of protectiveness, but not Nick. No. Nick got big brother with a gun making thinly veiled threats to nice young men right after Christmas. 

“Trying to save you from Sam?”

“Who knows?” Nick knew. He knew Mike as well as his brother knew him. Mike must have found out about the money and thought Sam was taking advantage. Just another golddigger, as if Nick could only attract one single kind of person. 

He just hadn’t expected his brother to completely turn against that protective nature and try to save the kid from Nick. 

There had been some unpleasant truth in the statement about Sam being too good for him. 

Only, Nick found that he didn’t care. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love having these backlogged chapters for when I have weeks like this one where I really didn't have any good words in my head. You all still get a chapter and I don't have to feel guilty for being overwhelmed by life and spending my week binge watching horror movies and painting instead of all the things I was supposed to do.  
> Hope you all are having a productive and happy week-- but if no, and your week was lame sauce like mine was, than I hope you enjoy two boys vary almost kissing, and it can brighten things up for ya.

The big family group had finally seen themselves out a few minutes ago, leaving a whopping ten dollar tip in their wake. Smiling through her irritation, Tessa had cleaned up, clocked out, wrapped her coat around her and nodded to Sam.

“I saw you switched with Andy for tomorrow night.” She seemed quietly jealous. “What’d you have to trade him to get New Year’s off?”

Sam grinned, “My first born child?” Actually, he’d had to trade the other bartender three shifts next week, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights. Awful nights to work, and the trade may or may not be worth it in order to not disappoint Castiel who’d made such a serious point to invite Sam to come along to that party tomorrow night and keep Nick in line.

Tessa giggled, “Worth it to not have to work New Years though?”

“We’ll see,” he laughed. “I’ve got to wear a tie, so…”

“Aww, you’ll be adorable.” She teased, wiggling her fingers like you would at a small child. 

Sam flapped a hand at her and fluttered his eyelashes, happy to joke around after such a long day. “Always am.”

Laughing, she shook her head. “Alright, I’ve got to get off my feet. I’m so  _ done _ with today. See you next time.”

“Get home safe, Tess.” 

Sam waved goodbye as his coworker made her way out the door, coat pulled tight around her slight frame, braced against the snow that had started to fall once again. About an hour left until last call, Sam was sad to see her go. The extra help would have been nice, but he wouldn’t hold it against her. She should have been off at midnight and had only stuck around for the promise of a good tip by the massive party that she’d been tending all night. 

There were a few stragglers left in the corner by the television, but the rest of the bar was quiet, empty, and ready to be cleaned up. Sam set to work and apparently was so into the task at hand that he didn’t hear the bell over the door. He only realised that someone new had come in when startlingly cold hands came to rest along his sides. In a sweeping movement, Sam stepped sideways, swinging an elbow back to catch the person behind him in the chest. It wasn’t a movement meant to hurt, just to warn, as he moved away from the unwanted caress. Sam was more than used to this sort of beyond casual touching this time of night. It sort of came with the job, unfortunately. 

He turned, expecting to see one of the faces from the corner table, someone feeling brave and touchy after too much to drink. What he hadn’t expected was Nick’s lopsided smile while the blonde rubbed tenderly along his ribs where he’d just taken a sharp elbow. 

“Ow?” He sort of laughed, eyes dancing behind those dark framed glasses he was still wearing. They didn’t look any less strange now than they had earlier in the night.  

Sam snorted softly. “What did you expect?”

“I was sort of hoping for a hug?” Nick laughed before requesting, “and maybe a kiss on the nose?” Lightly tapping a finger right where he apparently wanted that little kiss. 

It made Sam very aware of the fact that their height difference would make the action only too easy. “That’s not going to happen.”

Nick’s less than disappointed response was to tilt his head back and blow a small, unwanted, kiss up in Sam’s direction. The slight purse of lips making him wince; apparently his recent injury still pretty tender.   

For a crazy moment, a little voice in Sam’s mind urged him to kiss it better. With Nick’s head tilted like that it wouldn’t take much more than a little lean in for Sam to meet him half way.  

If Nick had been a girl he might have done it.

Sam felt like he was losing his mind.

Tight chested, the very confused young man retreated to the safety behind the bar, really missing that time in his life when he didn’t have insane impulses like pressing his mouth to his friend’s. It was so much easier to act like nothing had gone weird or different when he had eighteen feet of countertop to hide behind. “You guys have a good dinner?”

Shrugging one shoulder, Nick slid onto a bar stool and made himself at home. “We went to a place I used to love. They’ve changed ownership and it was different but not bad.” He folded his hands on the counter. “How was your night?”

“It’s work,” Sam got out a glass and hesitated. “More rum and coke you’re not going to drink, or can I get your something you actually like?”

Brow furrowed, Nick tugged at his lip, tugging even if it seemed to hurt. This odd nervous habit. “I like rum and coke.”

“You never finish it.”

Mouth open like he was about to argue, Nick blinked a few times. “I… I guess I’m usually too distracted to finish it.”   

Sam glanced around the bar and could find not a single thing that might be distracting enough to make anyone forget their drink. “So… you want me to make you a…?”

“Surprise me with anything not made of vodka.” Nick sounded hopeful.

Laughing, Sam set to it, relaxing now that he had something to do that didn’t involve looking at Nick, or thinking about Nick and the way his mouth was bruised. Something had broken in Sam and he didn’t know what or when, only that he wished that he could go back to that simpler time. 

He placed a drink in front of Nick and relished in the bewildered blinking. 

“What the fruity hell is this?” Disturbed, Nick leaned away like he was worried the drink might retaliate. 

“Bourbon apple sangria,” Sam introduced the beverage with a grin. “All the worst hipsters order them when they come in.”

Nick looked dubiously into the pale liquor with its ice and thin slices of apples. “Why am I being punished like some hipster trash?” 

“Why are you wearing glasses like one?” Sam countered.

A sharp laugh caught in Nick’s throat as he reached up and adjusted the offending frames. “Because my eyes are just barely bad enough that I need glasses at night, or if I’m reading” He took a hesitant sip of the nonsense that Sam had put together for him and a small smile crept over him. “Ok, but that taste like autumn and I’m not even mad anymore.”

“You literally haven’t worn them a single time since I met you―other than the first night.” Sam didn’t know why he wanted clarification, but the glasses thing gave him something to focus on other than how happy he was to have Nick here, like he hadn’t basically been living with the man for the past two weeks and should be overly tired of him by this point. 

“Wow, you’re not my mom. “ Nick took another sip,  _ humming _ softly to himself. “And my eyes aren’t  _ that  _ bad. Things are just a little fuzzy. I didn’t mind squinting a little at your family… also I might have forgotten to pack my glasses when we left, just like I forgot to pack my contacts when I left home and didn’t expect to be in New York long enough for it to be an issue. Now I’m having regrets because you’re really fixating on them, but you’re also giving me apple whiskey nonsense drinks that I didn’t know I needed, so maybe it’s not too bad?”

He hadn’t meant to make the other man feel self conscious. “They… they suit you.” 

“Yeah?” Nick watched him with suddenly lidded eyes. 

“Make you look like an actual adult or something.”

Nick snorted before taking another drink. “Aren’t I something like fifteen years older than you?”

“Something like that? But I’m not buying it.” In the weeks since they’d met, Sam hadn’t really spent any time at all dwelling on that age difference. Considering that Nick was closer in age to Sam’s parents than to Sam, maybe he should have cared a little more. 

Except Nick was making content sounds into his bourbon like a kid with ice cream and really, it was hard to take the man seriously.  

“You’re good to stay right where you are, you old weirdo,” Sam nodded to his friend before raising his voice to yell to the other side of the room, “Last call! Come settle up your tabs. We’re closing in five.” Between the sign posted on the door and the clock on the wall, Sam shouldn’t be shooing them out for a while still, but he’d worked more than a full shift tonight and the end was in sight. Also, no one looked quite sober enough to realise he was closing it down a bit early. 

Eager to be done with this all, Sam took cash, made change, and kicked out the little group of people, locking the door behind them and turning off the neon sign in the window. He leaned heavy with his back to the door, taking a moment to just breathe the customer free air before making a mental list of all the things he still needed to do before he could leave.

“You alright there, boss?” 

Sam looked over to see that Nick had turned around on his stool, leaning his elbows back onto the bar, watching him over his drink. “Yeah. Just been a long night.” 

“Can I, uh, get you a drink?”

“You are legally not allowed to get me a drink here.”

With a small shrug, Nick took another sip, already halfway done with his bourbon and sangria. 

“I’m gonna sweep and wipe down the tables.”

“Go for it.”

Sam pushed off the door and came around the counter to grab the table rag. “Not going to offer to help?

“I do believe I am legally not allowed to.” No one else was quite as smug or unhelpful as Nick, though he did behave himself for once, sitting quietly with his drink, occasionally texting, and generally not being in the way.  

For the past ten hours Sam had been making pleasant small talk. It was a relief to just work in silence for a while. Cleaning quickly and maybe not as well as he usually did, the bar was presentable in a hurry, and Sam went and grabbed out a bottle of beer before coming up beside Nick.

The man glanced up from his phone, watching with more interest as necessary as Sam sat with his back to the counter, stretching his long legs out to rest on the back of a nearby chair. 

“All done?”

“Mmhm.” Sam grunted softly as he took a long drink.

“You look exhausted.” 

“Mmhm.” 

Without being asked, and without asking permission, Nick set his mostly empty glass down and closed his hand around the back of Sam’s neck.

Stiffening at the touch, Sam really, really wanted to pull away and lecture the other man on maybe making some sort of effort to respect personal space―except Nick had surprisingly strong fingers and he’d started working on the knot at the top of Sam’s spine. 

The fight went right out of him, head falling forward with a loose and unhinged movement. He didn’t even care how cold Nick’s hand was from holding his iced drink, he just relaxed into the deep kneading. 

“Oh,” Nick laughed a little too loud, surprised at his newly discovered power. “Was that your off button?”

Sam may have managed some sort of articulate grunting sound that only made the other man laughed harder. 

“That bad of a day, huh?”

“I feel like I live here sometimes.”

With a sympathetic noise, Nick nudged at Sam until he got the idea that he was to turn slightly on his bar stool. Whereas it made his legs less comfortable because he had to take them off the chair that he’d rested them on, it also meant that the other man could get both hands on him, digging into his neck and shoulders like he knew exactly where Sam needed to be touched.  

“You’re a real mess, you know that?” Nick asked, but didn’t wait for an answer, just rambling in that soft, low voice of his. “I was with a guy for a while, back when I first moved to France. He worked construction. These awful long hours. Always had knots like these after work. He’d come and fall onto my couch and say,” he purred out this long line of French. 

The words rose goosebumps along Sam’s arms and he laughed quietly when no translation was offered.  “He’d say  _ all  _ that?” 

“And then some.” Nick chuckled, digging his thumbs into the dip between Sam’s shoulder blades. “But you know, he had a dirty mouth, and I liked having a reason to get my hands on him.”

It was strange to imagine Nick with anyone.

It was strange hearing Nick talk about an old relationship (though the feelings behind this unexpected blue collared man were very different than when Nick had talked about his ex-fiance, Lilith). Nick’s voice was warm, amused with the memory.

Sam didn’t like it for some reason. Just the idea of some strange man coming home to Nick, and Nick taking care of him, rubbing his back, maybe talking about their day, maybe kissing slowly, the man pulling Nick into his lap, mouthing over Nick’s throat...

Frantic, Sam pushed the mental image away.   

Thoughts like these weren’t fair to Nick. Or to himself. After all, you shouldn’t objectify your friends, and you shouldn’t torture yourself.

These were just crazy impulses that he’d never act on. 

Not because Nick was a guy. Oddly enough―Dean’s throw away ramblings of ‘ _ and I thought, fuck it, if I didn’t like it I wouldn’t have to do it again _ ’ had at some unknown point snuck into the back of Sam’s thoughts, halfway between a pep talk and some poorly executed subliminal messaging.

No. 

The reservations lay in the way that Nick had never once shown any interest in him that way.

Yes there was joking, but nothing more than that, and Nick joked with everyone.  

Whatever the older man’s type was, it wasn’t Sam. 

Which was  _ fine _ with Sam. Really. He knew how to ignore unwanted thoughts like these. He’d had practice. Back in high school Sam had had a devastating crush on his drama teacher Mrs. Samuelson, so had pretty much every other boy at his school. She was gorgeous and funny, and had never once looked at any of them in anyway other than platonic.  

The world didn’t revolve around one teenage boy and his tidal wave of hormones. 

That hadn’t changed now that Sam had graduated into a passable facsimile of an adult. Wanting to touch someone (even just to satisfy some bizarre curiosity) didn’t mean that the other person had any obligation to feel the same.

He could just accept the nonsexy touching as a gesture between friends. A much appreciated gesture. Nick had hands that were perfect for finding all those sore awful spots that would have otherwise been ignored for the night and left to haunt Sam in the morning. 

It took him longer than he’d like to admit to remember how to use words―“When I asked you out for a drink tonight,” he could hardly keep encouraging noises from crawling out of his throat as Nick worked on a knot between his shoulders, “this,  _ hmmn _ , this isn’t what I had in mind.”

“We’re both here, we’ve both got drinks. Feels good to me.”

“Feels real good.”

“Alright, you kinky son of a bitch.” Nick rumbled in a way that might have passed for a laugh. “Don’t go making it weird for us both.”

Sam grinned at the floor, eyes closed and just enjoying every part of this. “Would it help if I call you ‘Daddy’?”

“You know? It really wouldn’t.”

Sam hadn’t even realised how comfortable he’d grown with Nick until he started to tease, “So I shouldn’t say ‘ _ right there, Daddy. Harder _ ?’”

With a small noise of distress, Nick’s hands left. “Nope. Nope. You ruined it.”

Feeling sad at the loss of the backrub, but also feeling amazing relaxed, Sam peered over his shoulder, through the fall of his hair, grinning. 

“You really enjoy that joke way too much,” the older man accused.

“Like how you enjoy talking about kissing on my family members?”

“In my defense, I look nothing at all like a ‘Daddy’ and your family has some damn fine genetics working in its favor. Which means you have to stop, and I get to keep on daydreaming about what it would be like to get snowed in for a weekend with a Winchester of my very own.”

Laughing was a safer option than joining in that particular daydream. Sam turned back around on his stool, slowly swinging his legs back up to rest on the chair he’d dragged over. “That’s… that’s an oddly specific fantasy you got for yourself there, Luci.”

“So, story time?”

Sam was fairly certain that he wasn’t now, or would ever be ready, for whatever story went along with this train of thought. “Yeah, alright.”

Reaching back to the bar, Nick lifted both their drinks, passing the beer to Sam with a slightly disappointed second glance at the brown bottle. “All the siblings went skiing up in Aspen this one winter―all of us except for Cassy, because he was like eight or something. Mikey and I were nineteen I think, which would have made Anna seventeen and Gabe sixteen-ish I guess… either way.. Anna brought along her girlfriend at the time, and Gabe brought his best friend Balthazar.”

The name made Sam chuckle, not that he’d usually judge a person by their name, he was just really tired and it was really unexpected.

“ _ Right _ ? Trust me, you think no one could possibly ever look like a ‘Balthazar’ and then you meet this guy and it just feels right. He’s very british, very much the same kind of ass as Gabe. They’re perfect together. Anyhow, we’re all staying up at a cabin my family owns, enjoying ourselves, just being absolutely awful and unsupervised teens. One morning, we wake up to see it had snowed like crazy the night before, so Balthazar and I decide to hit the slopes before everyone else can wake up. You know, just a perfect ski, virgin snow, sunrise, it was amazing. Anyhow, Balthazar ends up twisting his ankle half way down, we stop into one of those ranger first aid little cabin things to get some bandages to wrap him up. There’s this  _ rumble rumble _ ,” Nick paused to finish off his drink, sucking his teeth and closing his eyes for a moment. “Then the windows go dark and we’re covered in about ten feet of snow. No one came to dig us out until the next day.”

“Am I to take away from this story that his injured ankle didn’t in anyway interfere with some slightly underaged sexy time?”

Nick’s wolf like grin was more than enough affirmation. Still he added, “Apparently he’d always had a bit of a crush on me, and who am I to say no to some healthy experimentation? I mean, avalanche or no, I’m never going to turn down an offer to finger a leggy blonde.”

“Hey, wow. There’s that line that we’re not supposed to cross.” It was another one of those instances where Sam was suddenly gifted an onslaught of unwelcome mental images that he had to smack away. “I do  _ not _ need any details.”

“Suit yourself… can I get myself a drink?”

“You really shouldn’t―”

“I mean, I’d have you do it, but you deserve a rest after your long day.” Nick was obviously working an angle.

Sam was willing to let him. “Yeah.” This was a terrible idea if anyone found out about it. “Just don’t… just… yeah. Go for it.”

Almost too eagerly, Nick hopped down from his stool and went behind the bar. Sam chose not to turn and watch. He had to let himself trust the other man not to make a mess or break anything. Something behind him was poured slowly and Sam made a mental bet with himself that Nick seemed like, if left to his own devices, would go for scotch.

Nick came back with a red wine.

But Sam had only been tending bar for a few months now and he was still honing his instincts. For his own piece of mind he leaned over, bumping shoulders with his friend. “Feelings on scotch?”

Raising an eyebrow, Nick admitted, “Not a big fan? I’ve never felt old and salty enough to drink scotch. Why?”

It took all Sam had not to pout. “As a bartender I’m supposed to magically be able to just know what sort of drink people need. I would have pegged you as a scotch drinker.”

The look on Nick’s face was sort of warm and too happy. “You did good with the apple nonsense,” like trying to comfort the younger man. “Not what I would have picked, but it was damn delicious.”

“Hmn, I’ll keep on working at my psychic abilities.”

Nick chuckled, eyes closing contentedly, and luckily Sam caught himself before he leaned in too closely. 

Maybe it had just been a bit too long since Sam had been with someone. He took a long drink of his beer and wracked his brain to remember how long it had been since he’d had a date. The simple answer was too long, the more complicated answer was he’d had a date in early November that had ended with a soft good night kiss at her door more out of politeness than interest on either of their parts. The last time he’d  _ been with _ someone was probably at the Halloween party that he’d let Benny talk him into tagging along to. He’d had a tiny bit too much to drink and had made out with a cute blonde dressed as a nurse. Never got her name, but he’d got to second base and it had been a nice distraction from midterms. 

He was sure that somewhere his big brother was undoubtedly disappointed in him for the willingly self inflicted dry spell. There just hadn’t been anyone he’d been interested in enough to pull himself away from his thirty hour a week work schedule and his eighteen units of school. He didn’t have the time to devote to a girl friend, and wasn’t too into the idea of casual hookups with strangers.   

So he found himself in his bar after hours, watching the way his friend’s mouth rested on the edge of a wine glass, wondering if his lips were as rough as they looked.

Sam sighed in a way that hurt his chest, more longing and pained than he’d intended to let on. 

“Hey,” Nick instantly nudged him with an elbow. “It’s all done. You can go home and go to bed soon, and then we’re going to go have an early dinner with Cassy and your brother, and then a stuffy party with a bunch of people neither of us care about. No work. You’ll be ok.”

It was sweet that his friend had jumped to the wrong sort of conclusion, gently worried for him. If only Nick knew what was really going on, he’d probably be a lot less forgiving. 

“Dinner with the brothers?” Sam did his best to distract himself from the way that Nick’s arm was still touching his. “You think they’re going to be able to keep their hands to themselves, or are we going to spend the whole time politely averting our eyes?”

“Can you really blame them?” Nick shrugged. “I mean, they’re stupid in love with each other and haven’t been able to touch each other since they met. It’s sort of…  _ romantic _ ? Even if that’s a dirty word.”

Sam felt a grin creeping in. “You’re just ok with them now? Because a few days ago you were threatening to kill Dean.”

“It’s not my place to forgive your brother fucking around behind Cassy’s back.” He grinned back, this flash of teeth in the most threatening way possible. “If it were me? I would have handled things a little differently, but I’m not the one that fell in love with Dean. My opinion isn’t worth shit here.”

Sam was the sort to hold a grudge. It was a family trait, and he’d sort of assumed that it ran in his friend’s family as well (the obvious bitterness surrounding Michael fairly good evidence). He sort of liked the way that Nick could at least attempt to push his own feelings aside for the sake of his younger brother. 

It was unexpected and Sam had to ask, “You think love makes people just magically more forgiving?”

That grin wilted around the edges and Nick looked down at his lap. “Yeah. It really does. You’d be surprised how much someone can fuck you over and have it not change how in love you are with them.” He made a bitter sound that could have passed for a laugh. “It’s possible to hate someone and still be stupid in love with them. Humans are self destructive and awful like that.”

Sam instantly regretted that he’d let the conversation come this way. He tried to joke a little to lighten his friend’s words.  “Wow. I didn’t have you pegged as the romantic kind of guy.”

“I really am, though,”  Nick admitted in a defeated sort of way. “Just don’t tell anyone. I’ve got a reputation to maintain.”

“Oh yeah. We’ll keep it just between us.” Sam promised with a smile that he didn’t really believe in. “No one ever needs to know just how lovey dovey you can get.”

The noise that came from Nick was very nearly a laugh, this soft, content sound, even if he still didn’t look up. 

They drank in silence for a span. 

“You ok with it all?” Nick asked before he made it to the bottom of his glass. “Finding out about your brother and mine, I mean. I’ve seen that kind of surprise really wreck some families.”

“He’s still just Dean.” Shifting his legs dragged the wooden chair and made a soft scuffing sound. “He’s still my brother; him deciding to fall for a guy doesn’t change that.”

Nick looked over, a gentle smile reaching no further than his eyes. “I like that about you. Got your priorities in order.”

“I’ve only got the one brother. I can’t afford to be picky like you.” Sam hadn’t meant for that to sound the way that it did. “I didn’t mean that how it came out―”

“It’s still true.” Nick had that same unflappable calm, the same unblinking, unruffled look that Michael had had when he’d showed up in Sam’s dorm the night before. It was odd how those unexpected similarities rose up now sometimes in two men who looked so very different. “I can afford to pick favorites and hold grudges.”

Sam wasn’t sure that this new direction was a better one and he attempted to steer back towards possibly happier topics. “Dean, he’s always… he’s always been a real physical kind of guy.”

“I did get that about him,” Nick said in a way that seemed somehow very inappropriate. “Very direct about what he wants.”

“Yeah.” Sam felt his eyebrows draw together. “And he’s always had this  _ thing _ for hot male doctors, so really, it’s not all that surprising that him and Castiel are, you know...”

“Fucking like the world is ending?”

“I was going to say ‘dating’.”

Nick snickered into his drink. 

“It was really more of a surprise to find out that your brother was the first time Dean’d hooked up with another guy. Not that I’d ever really thought about it before, but the instant he said that Castiel was his first time trying it I realised that I’d just always sort of assumed that he’d been aware of the fact that he was bisexual, and had been…  _ acting  _ on it for years.”

“Male doctors, eh?”

“When we were younger and he got his appendix out,” Sam remembered telling Nick about his brother and the stubborn aftercare. “Dean spent a lot of time watching daytime TV. Found the soap opera ‘Doctor Sexy’. Guys aren’t my thing, but even I can admit that he was one pretty doctor.”

“Well, doctors aren’t my thing, but maybe I’ll have to go check it out.”

Sam smiled in spite of himself. Enjoying that they could talk like this. That after a long, full day of work, he still wanted to talk to Nick when normally he wouldn’t want to talk to anyone at all until he’d had a full night’s sleep. Nick was special, different than most other people. He fell under the same set of rules as Dean, which meant that anytime was a good time to talk. Sam would simply always have time to listen to whatever it was that Nick wanted to share with him.

Sam knew what he wanted to ask, but he wasn’t sure how well it was going to go over. “Hey, um...?”

“Yes-um?”

“How did you decide that you liked guys?” It would be easy enough to play it off as just a continuation on their discussion of Dean, it didn’t have to become personal about Sam’s own dubious feelings.

Nick made a small choking sound into his wine. “Wait. Was that an actual question?”

“Yes?”

That got a very real, very loud laugh out of Nick. “Not ‘ _ how did I realize’ _ or ‘ _ when did I figure it out’ _ ?”

“ ‘s the same thing.”

“Semantics are everything thing, little mister lawyer in training.” Nick was still laughing. “You tell me first, Sammy. How did  _ you _ decide you liked women?” 

When it was said like that Sam felt like an ass. “Yeah. Ok.” 

“No. I’m curious now if that’s how it worked for you. Did you just wake up one day, suddenly stricken with the puberty, and decide ‘ _ today’s the day I’m gonna get turned on at the thought of a woman _ ?”

“Christ, I wish it had been that simple.” Sam finished off his beer and debated if he wanted a second one, relieved that this could take an uncomfortable turn talking about their awkward childhoods. It felt somehow safer than other directions. “No. I was watching Return of the Jedi with Dean for the millionth time and suddenly Leia in her slave outfit was really doing it for me.”

“Yeah? Mine was watching this the original Alien film,”

Sam had to grin, “Sigourney Weaver?”

“Yeah, when she’s got that blow torch and she’s all sweaty and pissed off.” 

“I was thinking more at the end when she’s got just the tshirt and panties―”

“Any girl can wear panties,” Nick waved it off, the wine in his glass swirling. “I like mine to have weapons and rage.”

Instantly, Sam was right back to the place where he was watching Nick’s mouth. “And... the first time you found yourself noticing guys?”

Nick hummed this low, dark sort of sound and the bottom dropped out of Sam’s stomach. He looked sideways at his friend to watch the way that Nick had closed his eyes and found the smallest hint of a smile. 

“That would have been sixth grade, last year before I started at the all boys school. His name was Anthony Hall and he liked to try and rough me up after school before Michael got out of swim practice. I’d do homework in the library and that little prick would try and corner me back between the bookshelves. He had me pinned one day, saying something that I don’t remember anymore and suddenly we were both very surprised at how much I was enjoying it.” Nick laughed, peeking sideways at Sam, the smallest tinge of pink high on his cheeks, obviously amused by his own story. “I don’t know if it was me or him more freaked out by it. But he stopped picking on me.”

“That’s… that’s good I guess.” Sam found the whole idea more amusing than he should have. 

“He was my first kiss,” Nick laughed softly. “Not there in the library. A few weeks later though... I took a turn cornering him, hopeful, and fortune favors the bold I guess. It worked out alright. We stayed in contact for a few months even after we started going to different schools. He was a bad kisser even if I didn’t realize it back then, I was probably just as bad. We were good for eachother like that.”

“You think maybe you write the sort of stories, with the violence and sex, because your… um,” he pushed off the stool and went to go get another drink, mumbling the words, “your first sexual feelings... were about a woman who could kick your ass, and about a young man who was already kicking your ass?”

Nick didn’t answer right away, and Sam found a beer in silence, leaning on the bar and waiting until the other man slowly turned to face him. 

The blonde was grinning that off balance grin of his, “You know, I never really thought about it. I’ve always liked horror and violence, and I’ve always liked sex. It just made sense to combine them.”

A question came to Sam that he wasn’t willing to admit that he was curious about, much less put voice to. Instead he opened his second beer and kept his elbows on the countertop, settled in, innocent and not at all in any way considering suddenly that Nick might like things a little rough―and really that suggestion shouldn’t have held any interest at all to Sam. 

“So!” He said a little louder than he’d meant to, trying to distract himself. “Did you drive yourself or catch a cab?”

“Gabe dropped me off.” Nick was watching him over his glasses in a way that suggested that he wasn’t really dumb enough to have missed Sam’s sudden discomfort. “Figured I’d catch a cab back. You take the bus, right?”

“Not this time of night. They stop running about an hour ago. I get to walk my ass to the subway and then from there it’s just a little over a mile to the dorms.”

Nick laughed, then realised that Sam wasn’t joking and instantly frowned. “ _ Mon chou _ , It’s about ten below outside. You can’t walk.”

“I’ve got a coat.”

“You’ve also got a pseudo boyfriend for the next couple days until I head home. All the other boyfriends will be furious with me if they find out I’m letting you walk in sub zero temperatures. I’ll be kicked out of the club. I’ll have to sit at the shitty boyfriend table to eat my lunch, and those guys suck.”

Sam ran a hand through his hair, laughing and wishing that he didn’t find Nick so god damn charming. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell them.”

“You’ll also let me pay for your cab ride home.”

“I’ll be fine, Luci,” leaning over the bar, face definitely closer to Nick’s than needed. “But thank you.”

“Come on,” Nick urged softly, dipping his voice. “Let me take care of you. I’m god awful at most things, at least let me be a decent fake boyfriend for two more days.”

“W-what happens in two days?”

“I get my sorry ass back to France and you can just pretend you never met me.”

Even if it was the inevitable conclusion to all of this, an ending that had been presented at the very beginning of the whole thing, Sam had been doing his best to ignore it. If given the option tonight, he’d really love to keep on ignoring it. So he said the first stupid thing that came to mind, “You know, I might be able to get talked into sharing a cab, if we’re going to the same place, so we’re not wasting the fare.”

“Money isn’t really an issue… the  _ same  _ place?” Fingers still curled around his wine glass, Nick pushed his glasses up with a knuckle. 

“We’re getting food with the brothers in the afternoon, right?” Sam suddenly realised how his suggestion might have sounded. He’d only meant that he hadn’t been quite ready to say goodnight. “Wouldn’t it just be easier if we stayed together and didn’t have to try and meet up or anything?” 

Nick considered the offer. 

Nick also took a slow breath through his nose before he finished off his wine and held his glass out to Sam.

Some deeply ingrained work mentality kicked right in, and without even thinking, the younger man took the glass and refilled it halfway from the bottle of Cabernet that had been left sitting on the bar.

“I,” Nick opened and closed his mouth, biting at his lower lip before taking the offered glass of wine. “Thank you. I’ve got… there’s a second bedroom in the apartment. If you wanted to follow me home I could put you up for a night.”

They’d spent more than a week sharing a lumpy fold out bed. Two seperate rooms would actually be something of an upgrade, also the offer saved Sam from whatever strange hole he’d started digging for himself. 

“That sounds perfect.”

“Thank god,” Nick sighed the words under his breath before smiling up at Sam, shoulders drooping like he’d been holding his breath. “Yeah. Ok. Spare room. It’s all yours,  _ mon petit chou _ .“

“Do I always have to be a little cabbage?” There had been an odd hiccough to the conversation and Sam wasn’t going to be the one to address it. Instead he laughed and tried to keep it light and not worry why Nick was casting up silent prayers. 

“What would you prefer I call you?”

“I’ve always been a fan of just plain  _ Sam _ .” Sam offered with a laugh. 

“ _ Sam _ ?” Nick teased, acting rather surprised and he tried the name out again. “Sam… hmm, no. Sorry. You really just don’t look like a Sam.”

“ _ Luci _ ,” Sam grumbled, “I want to remind you that I have the power to take that wine right away from you.”

“Oh, you’d have to fight me for it.” His crooked grin drifted back as he sipped on his wine like a victory.

Sam would have fought him, just on principle, because he was almost certain that he could win, but he let it go. He’d rather lean there with his friend, talking about nothing at all, also he had no interest in cleaning up the inevitable spilled wine that would come from a wrestling match between the two of them.

They both finished their drinks and Nick called a cab almost reluctantly. 

“We can’t just stay hiding in here all night.” Sam pointed out.

“I know, I know.” Nick grumbled, putting his cell phone away and looking out the tinted window at the very dark and unwelcoming night. “I just really hate the cold.” 

Laughing, Sam pulled an arm around Nick’s shoulders, guiding the other man outside into the lazy sort of snow storm that fell in near silence, making the far side of the street vanish into the grey. “Come on. I’ll keep you warm.”

Nick had a coat of his own, a good and proper looking one, unlike his worn and faded jeans with the holes in the knees. He’d probably be warm enough on his own while they waited the two or three minutes for the taxi to arrive, but still, Nick stayed leaning into Sam. Taking shelter against his side until the yellow cab to pull up to the curb.

The apartment looked exactly like Sam remembered it from the one other time he’d been over, though his head had been a little cloudy with a mix of alcohol that night so it wasn’t a particularly strong fixed memory of this place. Tonight he’d only had two beers, not enough liquor to even feel it in his chest or that soft place at the base of his skull. 

Almost fully sober made it hard to not gawk at the understated opulence of the place.  It was real leather furniture, not imitation. Polished wood floors, not tile. Marble countertops, not granite. The paintings on the walls were actually paintings, not art prints. 

Sam stood, looking up at a landscape painting, and he’d never had much of an eye for art. Usually it was ‘nice’ and he moved on with his day. But the light was coming in through the trees, the leaves painted so delicately they looked transparent, all these little brush strokes visible and perfect in the way that framed posters just didn’t have. 

“Nick?”

“Yes, my love?” 

The question died in Sam’s mouth as his brain slowly caught up with the nickname. The unneeded and unappreciated nickname. He realised he prefered to be called stupid and damning things in a language he didn’t understand. “Hey, um…”  _ What had he meant to say? _ . “The painting says Novak at the bottom. Who paints?”

A sharp laugh came from the kitchen, Nick peering around the corner to look at what Sam had found so very distracting. “What? Oh. That’s probably one of Gabe’s.”

That was enough to turn Sam away from the painting. “The little jerk who grabbed my ass?”

“Well, noticing you have a nice ass really has nothing to do with artistic ability…” the edge of Nick’s tongue darted out to touch his upper lip, muffling a laugh. “But yeah. He used to paint. He also used to race horses, did stock market trading for a year, scuba diving instructor, cello teacher. Right now he bakes. Next year he might be a tour guide in the Natural History Museum. Who knows.”  

“... your brother Gabriel?” Sam couldn’t see it.

Nick laughed again, ducking into the kitchen and coming back with two glasses of wine. “He comes off as a slacker, but he got accepted into college when he was sixteen, he holds two doctorates and god knows what other accolades, and zero attention span for anything once he’s figured it out.” He passed one of the glasses to Sam before sinking onto the couch. “Cassy’s the same way… the graduating real early, not the attention span of a border collie puppy part. Like all the smarts went to the two youngest kids.”

“Isn’t your guy’s sister a biologist or something?”

“You really got to rub it in, don’t ya? Fine. The three youngest got all the smarts.” Nick didn’t look too bothered, smiling.

Sam folded himself down onto the far end of the couch, tucking his legs up under him. “What does Mike do?”

Nick made an ugly sound into his drink, rolling his eyes.

“Just sits around in people’s rooms with guns trying to be spooky?” Sam offered, smiling, even as he remembered that considering what little he knew about the family, that might legitimately be Michael’s job.

“No, he’s a police officer.”

Sam thought it was a joke. He laughed but the noise faded quickly. “Wait, you’re serious?”

Nick let his head fall back to rest against the couch. Sighing. “Apparently he made sergeant earlier this year.”

“But… with what your family does, I mean, since you guys, um―”

“It’s actually really convenient, all things considered. Dad was a lawyer, and that was convenient too. Cassy is apparently almost a doctor at this point, and that’s going to come in handy… all things considered.”

“And you being a college professor?”

With a smile that didn’t touch his eyes, Nick looked deep into his drink. “That’s my way of saying that I’d rather kill fictional people instead of real ones. I never had the stomach for it. Never was all that good at it, not like Michael… I’m good to keep on this track if you want. I try to own up to the good and the bad things I’ve done over the years, but you alright if we talk about something that will never be admissible in a courtroom? For your sake if nothing else?”

The wine was sweet on his tongue and Sam wished that he’d been given a bigger glass of it. “Yeah. Something else to talk about would be great.”

“Tell me about school.”

“School?”

“Classes. New York. How are you doing in school all the way out here, so far from home and do you like it?”

There probably wasn’t a more safe and easy topic for Sam. He drank his wine and complained about his statistic class and gushed over his civil code professor who had been absolutely amazing. He let Nick push him towards stories of the whole three parties he’d been to out here, about the trouble finding a room in the dorms, about his roommate, and anything else that Nick wanted to know. 

Nick listened and kept refilling Sam’s glass any time it started to get too low, and then it was the older man’s turn to talk about his time as a student. About his awful statistics class, and how he’d pointedly avoided all parties he’d been invited to and had hated his roommates. 

“So this whole time y-you’re studying an’ being pissed,” Sam’s mouth felt slow and clumsy and he grinned at the way that Nick’s eyes had grown so bright behind his glasses, “at just fuckin’ every thin’ you’re also writing bad sex advice for the school paper?”

“It started as a joke.” Nick was very, very, oh so carefully sloshing more wine into his glass. “I’d come right from an all boys school; never met a woman, not below the waist… you know? But my college roommate starts askin’ me for advice on how to keep things excitin’ with this girl he’s with. So I remem-re-remember this friend of mine telling me that you can put pepper under a girl’s nose right before she comes... because apparently sneezing feels like an orgas’m to women and it’s like a double finish for her and... and,” Nick started laughing, practically giggling behind one hand.

Sam chuckled, “That’s not how that works, Luce.”

“It’s really not.” He had to set down his glass before he spilled it, putting a hand over his mouth to muffle his laughter. “But my roommate loved it. He worked for the school paper an’ they were lookin’ for someone to take over the advice column for a semester while the writer was- was, um, how do you call it when you go to school in a-a-another country?”

Eyeing the now mostly empty bottle of wine, and eyeing his friend, Sam hesitantly offered, “Exchange student?”

With a triumphant noise Nick touched one finger to his nose and pointed with the other hand to Sam. “Ahaha.  _ Exchange _ student.”

“You’re drunk.” He felt a need to point out, in the off chance that his friend might not have noticed it yet.

“Nooo,” Nick dragged the word out like he was looking for the end of it, slowly shaking his head. “I haven’t even finished my first glass.”

“Because you keep refilling it before you get to the bottom.” Sam reached over to the side table where the bottle sat and shook it, laughing at how light it had gotten.

“I’m soft on the edges… and warm… not drunk.”

“ ‘m glad you’re warm for once, you human ice cube.”

Nick ducked his head, face rosey and grin so crooked. If he wasn’t six foot plus of sarcasm and spite he’d have been able to pass for adorable. “I-I think my hands are still cold.”

“You  _ think _ ?”

He opened and closed his hands, making loose fists, “Feel them,” before holding them out for inspection. “They’re cold. Right?”

Dutifully, Sam reached out, running a thumb up one of Nick’s palms. “I- I don’t know, dude. They feel like the normal kind of warm?”

With an exasperated sigh Nick very aggressively slid down the couch, placing his hands on both of Sam’s cheeks. “See?”

“Ok. Yes. Thank you.” Sam slapped his friend away, leaning back as much as his corner of the couch would allow. “Still cold.”

Laughing again, wrapping his arms around himself, Nick confessed, “I’m gonna’ miss you.”

“Yeah?”

“Not just because you’re, um,  _ tu es co-c-comme un four-- _ ” he shook his head, chuckling. “Uhng. You know, um, you know what I mean.”

“I’ma wha’now?” Sam ran the words together, wondering in a muddled kind of way why this man never seemed to run out of awful nicknames for him.

“That thing you put bread in.”

Sam opened his mouth to help, but had no suggestions, instead letting his head fall back as he laughed.

“No.” Nick hit his shoulder. “What’s it called?”

“ _ The thing you put bread in _ ?”

“Yeah. You know,” Nick gestured towards the other side of the apartment, insistent, “and it’s hot, and it’s got knobs on it.”

If Sam hadn’t had about half a bottle of wine right along with Nick he might have been able to guess anything remotely helpful, but his brain had nothing helpful for the frustrated but happy man beside him. “Hot knobs?”

Nick’s laughter was little more than a hiss of breath at this point as he shook his head. “Don’t- don’t you say ‘hot knobs’ to me, you  _ lavette. _ ” He pushed his glasses up to his forehead, wiping happy tears from his glass bright eyes. “God. It’s a- a...  _ fuck _ .”

“It’s a ‘fuck’?”

“No.” Exasperated but so obviously enjoying himself, Nick wept, “I hate you so much right now.” 

“Good.” Sam grinned, pleased with the work he’d done here. He reached over, carefully taking Nick’s glasses from him (or at least as careful as he could with his pleasantly numb fingers). “You’re gettin’em all smudgy,” and he laid them onto the table beside the wine bottle. 

“No, I can’t see you now.” Sniffing sharply as the laugher trailed off, Nick squinted at Sam, this quiet disapproving sort of scowl. 

“Promise I’m still here.” Reaching back between them, Sam lightly poked a finger to the other man’s nose. “Promise.”

“I’m nearsighted, not blind.” Gross as it was, Nick tipped his head back rather suddenly, mouth open as he tried to lick Sam’s hand. 

Laughing all over again, Sam pulled away, retreating into his corner of the couch. “Gross, Nick. Stop.”

“Steal a man’s glasses, you’re gonna’ get licked,” he explained with eyes mostly closed, head still back as he exposed the long line of his throat. “I don’ make the rules here.”

“Mhm. Well, once you figure out who does, you let ‘em know I wanna file a complaint.” Unsteadily Sam got to his feet, using the nearby wall for support. 

“G-goodbye?” Came the uncertain question from the couch.

Sam moved slowly down the hall to where he remembered the bathroom being. “I’ll be back.” There was a phrase he heard from a few of the older bar patrons now and then, about never buying liquor, only renting it. Sam had just enough alcohol in him right then to laugh a little as he remembered the saying. 

By the time he’d made use of the bathroom and washed his hands with only getting a bit of water all over the counter, Sam came back to the living room to find that Nick was finishing off the last of the wine, drinking right from the bottle like the classy gentleman that he was. 

“Hey, um, can I borrow something to sleep in?” He asked, watching his friend with a smile. “I smell like a bar for some reason.”

Nick raised an eyebrow, fixing Sam with that lidded kind of expression he usually had, sort of sleepy and a touch condescending, and for the first time the younger man realised it was because his friend couldn’t see him―not because he just had a resting bitch face. 

Nodding, Nick pointed with the bottle towards the bedroom. “Anything you want.”

It felt a little strange to go and dig in the other man’s things, expecially seeing as Nick hadn’t unpacked from the trip to South Dakota. Sam was forced to rifle through the small suitcase that had been left on one side of the bed that looked only slightly slept in.  

Nick’s clothes smelled like Nick, even the stolen Styx shirt of Dean’s had the blonde’s pleasantly musty aftershave sort of scent to it and Sam knew that he shouldn’t have enjoyed it quite as much as he did. He may have stood in the slightly cold room in just boxers and the faded band tee, lightly sniffing one sleeve, freezing like he’d been caught when he heard his name yelled.

“Sam!” Came the call from the other room. “Sam, you’re an oven!” 

“Keep working on your insults, old man!” He yelled back. There wasn’t a pair of sweatpants to steal that seemed like they’d fit him, and he wasn’t going to sleep in jeans that reeked faintly from a ten hour shift of small alcohol spills. So, accepting he’d have to live with the lightweight night clothes, he pulled one of the blankets from the bed, silently amused to see that there were more than three still left behind in the tangle from the night before. 

“It’s the word. The one I couldn’t remember. You’re like an  _ oven _ .” The explanation kept rolling in from the other room, slurring only slightly on the edges, because slightly drunk or not, Nick seemed to still be mostly in full possession of his faculties.

Laughing to himself, Sam’s cheeks were starting to hurt. He had absolutely no regrets in coming home with Nick. If there were only two days left after tonight, then this all qualified as a perfect waste of their time.

He pulled his pilfered blanket around himself and came back to the couch. “So I’m an oven, huh?” 

“You’re like a g’damn furnace.”

“I like to think of myself as an averagely insulated human.” Sam argued and tucked himself back into his corner. There might have been a promise of a second bedroom, but he could already tell he was most likely going to spend the night right here.

How things were going, the way Nick had mostly melted into the couch, it looked like he might have company.

The older man was shaking his head, knees tucked up, holding the empty wine bottle to his chest in an easy hug. “It’s... hell, kid― it’s in the negatives outside an’ you’re not wearing pants.” 

With a muddled mind, Sam looked at where his legs were sticking out here and there from under the blanket. “But we’re not outside, and you’ve got the heater goin’ pretty high. It’s  _ nice  _ in here.”

Nick grumbled, tugging on his long sleeves and not accepting the simple facts that despite winter falling heavily in grey swirls beyond the window, in here it was nearly summer. 

Wine apparently made Sam either very brave or incredibly stupid. “If you’re so cold come over here.”

“I… I am here,” Nick looked slowly around the rather small couch, confusion clear on his face.

“ _ Here _ . Over here,” smiling, Sam motioned towards himself with both arms, wide scooping gestures like you’d use to try and call a happily frolicing dog back to you.

Nick held his empty bottle a little tighter, watching the younger man with some obvious reservations. 

“Come share the blanket, you ass. Apparently I’m warm enough to put bread in,” he had to pause in his teasing because Nick’s startled bark of a laugh caught him off guard and they both sat there giggling for a few moments. 

“I-I’m not cud-cud- ugh! ― _cuddling_ wit’you, _mon chou_. That is a… a _très_ _mauvais idée_ ,” and Nick continued to mutter to himself quietly in French, many, many lost kinds of words as he pulled himself between the distance separating them and took the offered corner of blanket.

The wine made Sam pull an arm around his friend’s shoulders, tugging him tight against his side to better share his internal warmth that apparently the other man was a bit jealous of. Nick, as unnecessary as always, tipped his head up, pressing a kiss to Sam’s unprotected cheek, his nose startlingly cold where it smashed against Sam.

Grumpys sounding French tumbled out of his friend as Nick let his head fall loosely against the back of the couch, his shoulder tucked under Sam’s so securely.

Warmth crept up Sam’s neck and held him close and he tried to convince himself it was just because he suddenly had another human pressed to him and for no other reason whatsoever. It had not been an inviting or a lingering sort of kiss. It didn’t seem to have meant anything at all, so Sam pushed it aside as best as his foggy mind would allow him to.  “You, uh, you ok there, boss?”

“ _ Oui, _ ” and more nonsense words flowed from Nick, maybe French or maybe he was just making it up as he went along.

“Drunk or tired?” Sam gently interrupted, maybe leaning his face into the top of his friend’s head and  _ maybe _ inhaling a little deeply.

Nick sighed out a word that seemed to convey the feeling of both very tired and at least slightly drunk.

Amused, Sam let a comfortable silence grow between them, enjoying the exhausted sort of happy that came with being still awake at nearly five in the morning, at being warm with expensive wine, at the heavy weight of his friend against his chest as Nick continued to settle in, at having not enough wits about him to keep on denying that he had just the biggest, dumbest crush on this surly son of a bitch who’d rested a chilled hand on the center of his chest, making lazy patterns with his fingers.  

“You really gonna’ jus’ fuck off in two days and I’ll never see you again?”  

“I’ve got to go home.” He grumbled in a deeply resonant kind of way. “Classes to teach.”

“That sucks.”

“You an’ me... we’re two ships at night.”

“It sucks.” Sam repeated with more force.

“Hmm,” Nick rumbled, “but you’re welcome.”

“I didn’t say ‘thank you’ for leaving.”

“But you did mean it.”

“Fuck you,” Sam had no force behind the two words.

With a pitiful sort of groan, Nick sighed, “ _ si seulement _ .”

“...in English please?”

Nick made a soft dismissive sound, waving off whatever he’d just said. “It’s not goodbye for… for two days,  _ mon amour _ . Two days is not tonight. Tonight is not goodbye. Stop… stop making it feel sad.”

“Alright,” slowly, reluctantly, Sam agreed. He pulled the blanket more firmly around his friend’s shoulders, not minding at all that he’d become just another couch cushion at some point. “But it really sucks and I’m’a gonna’ miss your stupid face.”

“ _ My _ stupid face?”

“Currently my favorite stupid face,” Sam quietly confessed.

“Flirt.”

“Shut up. Not like that.” It was exactly like that and Sam wished that he’d had enough wine to be more honest about the fact.  

Nick had no answer to that, and after a minute or so Sam realised that his friend had fallen asleep. 

He shifted enough to peek down at the man using his shoulder as a pillow. Nick’s neck bared, mouth bruised around the small scab on his lower lip, eyelashes so pale they were nearly ginger. The angle was awkward and the morals were grossly not present as Sam pressed a careful kiss to the other man’s mouth and was rewarded with an irritated sound as Nick turned his face away.

“No,” the blond grumbled, near incoherent as he mashed his face into Sam’s neck, breath hot and sweet.

Stricken, Sam shrank in on himself, or at least as much as a man of his size could possibly manage in his current predicament. “ ‘m sorry.”

Nick demanded against his shoulder, “Sleep.”

And usually, given the circumstances, the demand might have taken some effort―but the day had been long, the wine had been strong, and the sun would be trying to rise in another hour or so. 

Sam slept the kind of sleep that makes you forget how much you’d had to drink.

He slept the kind of sleep that makes you forget the when and how you ended up on a couch that wasn’t your own.

The kind of sleep that makes you forget that you’d been dumb enough to steal a kiss in those last few moments of wakefulness.

  
  
  



	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well... here marks the last of my backlogged chapters. So for those of you who have gotten used to my unprecedented weekly updates, I'm super sorry for what comes next. Next is the long and odd radio silence of a few weeks at a time.   
> Regular updates were fun while I could manage them, but life always gets a little up in the air and unpredictable during the school year.  
> <3 thank you guys for your patience and I'll be back sooner rather than later with another chapter

Blinking blearily, trying to get his bearings, Sam realised that he wasn’t in his dorm. He also wasn’t alone. The dull ache of a hangover shadowing his mind and thoughts, he still found himself waking up rather quickly. 

The quickness was good. 

The quick turn to wakefulness kept him from irritatedly brushing away the very scratchy something nestled into the crook of his neck. 

There was something very odd about waking up with the rough texture of another man’s beard against his throat―nothing quite as odd as the contrasting softness of Nick’s mouth resting along his pulse. 

Sam remembered Nick meeting him at the bar, and he halfway remembered having a beer before they left… in a cab?

The bottle of wine on the side table near his head, along with the two empty glasses, indicated that he’d probably had a bit more than just the one beer he could clearly remember.  

Nick shifted behind him, tightening the arm that was looped around Sam’s chest, and squinting into the room’s flood of daylight the younger man realised that he was basically wearing his friend like a backpack. 

Sam had become the little spoon at some point during whatever happened last night. 

Sam had never been the little spoon, which meant that he’d been missing out, because Nick was this solid and comfortable weight pressing him into the couch. It was a strangely ‘safe’ feeling, for lack of a better word. One arm hooked around Sam to keep him from falling off the couch, one leg leg slid between his, tangling their limbs. It planted Sam’s ass firmly into the hollow curve of Nick’s hips and oddly there was nothing bad about the way they fit together. 

Even with the quiet throb of a headache ricocheting against his temples, Sam felt a small smile tugging at the edges of his mouth. A smile that fluttered into wide eyed surprise as Nick muttered something warm and rough with too much teeth against bare skin. A smile that vanished all together with a thick swallow as the other man’s hand slid down from his chest to squeeze his side before slipping beneath Sam’s shirt.

Nick’s hand was cold, at least by comparison to Sam’s sleep warm body. Those fingers clumsily flitting over his belly button and skirting dangerously lower. It tickled, but not in necessarily a bad way and Sam’s body was coming awake rather rapidly even if his mind was still clouded.

“Nick?” He was going to give his friend the benefit of a doubt, assuming by the incoherent mumblings still being pressed along his throat, that the other man wasn’t awake yet. “Nick!”

That hand stopped it’s lazy exploration and Nick very noticeably tensed.

“Goodmorning?” Sam’s voice was a little tight, a funny, giddy sort of nervousness twisting through his gut.

“Hi... there.” Nick retreated into the back of the couch, pulling his arm away and radiating cautions tension. “You… um, hey. You sleep ok?”

“Aside from the early morning petting and the fuckin’ weak hangover? Um, yeah... I guess.”

“Sorry.” There wasn’t enough room between Sam and the back of the couch for Nick to pull away far enough for them to not be touching, but the other man seemed to be making a fairly good attempt. 

“You were expecting someone else?” Sam mumbled in a way that was meant to be light a joking.

“I-I guess I was.” Nick’s deep exhale ghosted warm breath along the back of Sam’s neck in a way that wasn’t unpleasant. “Sorry.” 

Sam couldn’t get off the couch without addressing the way they’d laced their legs together. Any movement bound to be clumsy and more awkward given the circumstances. Joking was a coping mechanism he’d picked up from his big brother. It didn’t help, but there really wasn’t much that could possibly help right now. “So, Luci… you got yourself a strapping young lad waiting back in your bed in France?”

“No.”

“No, he’s not strapping, or no he’s―”

“There’s no lad,” Nick’s laugh was a little tight, “strapping or otherwise. No lady either. I’m not really the sort of person anyone would wait at home for,” he said it with humor in his voice, this self deprecating sort of chuckle.

Ever so faintly in the back of Sam’s mind came the thought that Nick was leaving the day after tomorrow. Apparently going back home to no one; to teach and do whatever else the hell it was that a quiet sort of man like Nick did without someone like Sam to share a couch with.

If Sam didn’t hurt with that dehydrated, awful, hungover sort of feeling― 

If Sam wasn’t so anxious about the very unprecedentedly physical feelings he had recently noticed that he had for the man behind him―  

If hugging his friend right now might not have been very easily misunderstood by both of them―  

If all those little reasons hadn’t been stacked against him, then Sam would have rolled over, told Nick to shut up, told Nick that he was sort of surprisingly amazing and if the rest of the world had failed to take notice then they could all collectively fuck off. He would have pulled his arms around his friend and told him to be kinder to himself. 

Instead he added his own awkward laugh to the mix, rolling a shoulder back to nudge the man hiding behind him. “At the risk of… of making this more weird than it is... I’d wait for you.”

Nick took a drawn breath and didn’t otherwise have a response for once.

“I mean, you know, next time you come out to visit. I’ll still be here… for drinks after work, and complaining about our brothers, and having dinner, and getting you stabbed in a dark alley. You know… all our favorite things.”

With a strange noise that sounded almost pained, Nick pressed his face between Sam’s shoulders, clinging to the back of his shirt.

“Or we can pass on the stabbing?” Sam offered, reaching behind him to lightly pat his friend’s side, firm and comforting, but mostly teasing. 

Nick laughed, still with that pained sort of sound. “Oh boy.”

“I’ll still be around even if you promise only boring stuff on your next visit,” Sam teased, softly dying inside with each of Nick’s laughter shaken breaths pooling heat along his spine, “like  _ not _ getting you stabbed. If that’s your thing.”

It felt an awful lot like teeth grazed lightly grazed a shoulder blade through his t-shirt and Sam stilled, waiting to see if that gentle cut came a second time, trying to figure out what it would mean if it did. 

There was no second, teasing chomp, only an apologetic sounding confession of, “I wasn’t really planning a return trip, Samuel.”

“Well... plan one,” ignoring the awful use of his full name, Sam told the other man in no uncertain term what he wanted, “and come back to visit. Or I’ll be pissed at you.”

“Oh no.”

“Pissed enough to get a passport and use the money you gave me to go to France and kick your sorry ass.”

Nick’s laugh came in hot puffs of air and a pleased sort of sound.

“Real serious about it, old man.”

“I’m sure you are,” Nick chuckled, his hands smoothing over Sam’s back before giving him a gentle shove. “Let’s get you some tylenol for that cranky ass wine hangover you’ve got going for yourself.”

“I’m not―” 

“You are, and when you feel a little better we can talk about the possibility of me  _ maybe _ one day coming back for a visit. Maybe.”

The gentle shoving continued and Sam finally took the hint, untangling legs and carefully sitting up. The apartment was cold without the blanket and without the other man clinging to him. “I’m not cranky.”

“You are hungover.”

“And you’re not?”

“ _ Mon chou _ , that much wine is not kind and it is not forgiving.” Nick sat up behind Sam, not scooting to be beside him, but resting a bent knee along Sam’s back and lazily draping an arm over the younger man’s shoulder. “When I was younger I could finish off a whole bottle on my own before bed and roll into class the next morning with a bounce still in my step.”

“I’m having a hard time imagining you bouncing.” Sam rested his cheek on the other man’s arm, taking a tired breath and looking around the apartment. “I’m also having a hard time remembering how we got here last night.”

“Taxi…” Nick leaned into him, morning breath a little sharp on Sam’s cheek. “You don’t remember?”

“It’s a bit hazy after we leave the bar.”

“How hazy is ‘a bit hazy’?”

“Well, I don’t remember the taxi,” Sam offered with an unhappy sort of chuckle. “Did I miss anything good?”

Nick’s nose brushed the spot bellow Sam’s ear. “Hell if I know. I just remember the couch and the wine and I’m going to guess everything went well after that point, if you not wearing pants is any indication.”

Sam looked down at his bare knees and laughed a little nervously. Teasing aside, he was positive that nothing interesting had happened. Despite waking up nested together like young lovers, Sam was certain that he wouldn’t have been a dumbass enough to try and talk Nick into doing anything worth remembering. 

Regardless of any alcohol being involved, Sam liked to think that he would have kept enough presence of mind not to feel up his very nice and very disinterested friend while they were both drunk.

Suffering in continued silence was the Winchester way and Sam was a gentleman. At least, he hoped that he had been.

They both took turns at the shower. Nick first, and then Sam. By the time the younger man returned he was happy to find that his clothes from work had been thrown int to be washed and would be clean and dry about the time that the two men had finished the little meal that Nick was making. 

Sam leaned on the counter, watching his friend pouring two bowls of cereal, the kind with marshmallows and dubious nutritional content. The older man’s arms were bared for the second time since they’d met, wearing only a lightweight undershirt with a pair of his ratty jeans. The change of clothes might have had something to do with the blasting heater―physical comfort a high priority. For Nick’s sake, though, Sam sort of hoped that the apartment’s temperature was only a small part of the unexpected sleeve length.     

“Don’t get too fancy with it now,” Sam teased, taking the offered bowl and picking up the carton of milk from the counter.

“Cassy’s making us real food,” the other man reminded, glancing at the clock over the oven. “This is just so we don’t starve to death between now and then.”

“I don’t think I’ve had Lucky Charms since I was eight years old.”

“Yeah, well Gabe stays here off and on, so he gets to stock the cupboard with whatever garbage he wants.” Nick took the milk once Sam was done with it, splashing a little over his cereal and sitting at the table to eat like a civilized human. 

Sam followed, feeling concerned for the way that the milk in his bowl had already started to become discolored. It ended up tasting about how he remembered it, which was neither good or bad, but definitely very sugary.

They ate and they talked and sooner rather than later Sam’s clothes were ready for him and they were good to take Nick’s car out to Castiel’s place. 

Traffic was already bad, which was a great sign seeing as they were planning to go somewhere else in a few hours. Usually Sam didn’t have to worry much about holiday traffic since moving out here, yes the subways would always be unusually jam packed, but it was still better than driving, or just sitting in an unmoving car in a sea of other unmoving cars, wondering why you hadn’t driven more than a couple blocks in the last five minutes. The lack of actual driving all the more irritating because according to the GPS they were only a couple blocks from their destination, and if there was any place to park they could have done it half an hour ago and simply walked the rest of the way. Too many streets had been shut off for the Time’s Square event, traffic detours making usually quiet residential streets like this hell for the rest of the evening.

Nick apparently didn’t believe in using the radio (claiming that he had no patience for commercial breaks between every other song), so they just got to sit listening to muffled honks and the humm of the heater. 

Resting an elbow against the steering wheel, Nick played with his lip. “Is it weird that I feel nervous?”  

“About the traffic?”

Peering over the tops of his glasses, Nick rolled his eyes.

“About the party later?” Sam asked a little more seriously. “I know we promised your brother that we’d go, but honest, if you want to bail I think I saw at least one more bottle of wine back at your apartment and you and I can just settle in and watch the ball drop on TV like proper introverts.” Not that Sam was much of an introvert, but he was more than willing to make an attempt for his friend’s sake.

A slow grin started on the other man, mostly hidden behind his still raised hand while he tugged at his lower lip. “ _ Chere _ , why couldn’t we have met ten years back? I could have been so in love with you.”

The joke of a question slammed Sam with a very strange kind of emotion that he didn’t have a name for, something gentle and painful and nostalgic in a bad sort of way, like being homesick for a place you’ve never been to. He joked to push the feeling aside and Dean would have been proud.  “Because ten years ago I would have been only eleven, and my parents probably would have called the cops on you?”

“One day you’re going to make some lucky girl very happy.” Nick shook his head, smiling and letting the car roll forward into the intersection, slowly turning left. Castiel’s house visible down at the end of the block. “Me? I’m a bitter and broken son of a bitch who’s given up.”

Sam frowned harder than he’d intended.

“I like it this way. It let me meet you after all.” Nick laughed softly as he crept down the street with the sluggish flow of traffic. “No one is interested in things like love unless there’s either sex or money as bait―and I know that sounds defeatists, but it’s what I bet Gabe and sure as hell, here you are.”

“Am I… getting paid for this and you didn’t tell me?”

Nick snorted a short laugh. “No.”

“Well, I’d like a little bit of warning if it’s the other option then,” Sam laughed in a skittish sort of way. Not sure if he could keep up this kind of joking for too long.

“This here is out of friendship... not the other thing. Friendship comes from stupid stuff like dark humor and sarcasm and mutually assured destruction.” With a small, victorious sort of sound, Nick pulled into his brother’s driveway. “But you  _ did  _ take the money so I’m still winning the bet with my romantically idealist brother.”

Sam had taken the money.

He wasn’t going to apologise for it. That pile of cash was going to help him out through the next semester of school in a way that he’d really needed. Even still, the other man’s words felt like something that needed to be argued with, too much surrender in those simply stated opinions. 

“You know, it’s not my place to say,” Sam unbuckled his seatbelt and zipped up his coat. “You’re obviously salty and I’m sure you’ve more than got your reasons for it. But, not everyone is jaded and awful and looking for easy money and easier sex… lots of us are still romantically idealistic. I hate the idea of having anything in common with Gabe, but good company and bad jokes does it for me a lot more than the number of zeros in someone’s bank account.”

Nick was watching him sideways, a hesitant kind of laugh still on the corners of his mouth. “You’re like a puppy and a ray of sunshine had a baby. You know that?”

Grinning at the compliment, but still knowing full well that he lost this argument, Sam got out of the car.  Something had broken Nick a long time ago and Sam’s friend didn’t want to be told that not everyone was going to cheat on their fiancé, in the same way that Nick didn’t want to be told that his scars were hardly noticeable. 

Sam was positive that, if given enough time, he could figure out a way to beat these ideas into Nick’s head. Tonight though, it was time to deal with brothers and then a party that required a suit and tie. The search to find Nick’s missing self worth could hold off for a few more hours.   

 


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <3 hey, friends.  
> Keeping things rolling, only 2ish weeks between updates, that's not too bad. Right?  
> Could be so much worse. There was this fic I was reading once, felt like 1 or 2 chapters away from the end, updated regularly, and then one day stopped. Over a year with no updates and suddenly I see that it's been deleted T_T those are the sorts of things to make a kid sad. What's the longest you've ever sat hopeful for an update to a story (and had it suddenly spawn a new chapter to wow and surprise you... not the kind of story that just sits abandoned because those are like sad lost friends)?
> 
> and thankyou for the random 'good studies' wishes I got last update. I'm happy to hold onto them until next fall when I go back to school for my masters and need all the encouragement I can get. When I said that things get hectic during school season it's because I'm a teacher XD and I realized that the majority of you probably had no idea.   
> so, yeah. fun facts about me I guess? Back in the day I almost became an English teacher, hastily back flipped out of that right before graduation, switched my major, silly amount more school, and now I teach art classes to little kids.

As long as Sam wasn’t going to protest then Nick had every intention of fussing with the kid’s tie; for good measure smoothing his hands over Sam’s shoulders, dusting off imaginary lint for the tenth time since they’d gotten out of the cab. 

Amused, Sam repaid the antsy movement, straightening Nick’s tie that absolutely did not need any straightening. “Does this help at all?”

“Nope,” Nick grinned, pointedly keeping his eyes locked on his friend and ignoring the rest of the room. “This is fuckin’ awful… not you in a suit, you pull it off better than I remember, because hot damn. But the rest of this is just torture.”

Sam looked around the ballroom of the hotel, at the sea of strangers, “ _ Fancy _ torture.”

“Only the finest,” he agreed, running his fingers over the lapel of the kid’s jacket. 

If this was one of the seven levels of hell, it was definitely a level reserved for the white collar type. In the same way that there were special prisons for the wealthy, this here was the kind of hell for people who could afford something a little nicer. Sam had volunteered to be dragged along, but Nick had run from this ridiculous lifestyle years ago and never wanted to look back. 

He had no idea why he was here now.

Especially seeing as Sam had made the offer a second time for them to go straight from Castiel’s place back to Nick’s for a quiet night away from this type of mess. Even if the only thing that the two of them would have done was sit on the couch talking and drinking, it would have been considered a perfect night. 

With the gentle promise of something so much better, it was amazing that Nick had managed to get out of the taxi in the first place. His baby brother hadn’t been able to drag him any closer than the doorway, and if was up to him then Nick would camp out here until it was socially acceptable to leave.

“They’re getting away.” Sam said softly, loud enough to be heard over the music playing, but only just barely. The kid still had his hands on Nick’s tie and they must have looked somewhere between adorable and grossy in love, messing with each other’s clothing and whispering in the corner beside the doors.

“Who?” Nick asked as if he actually cared.

“Dean and Castiel.”

All Nick could think was ‘good riddance’. There were too many surprisingly tender moments that he’d been forced to witness during dinner. Enough that he was having a hard time holding on to his strong dislike of Dean. Anyone who could make Cassy look as happy as he’d looked all night, or anyone who could make him blush like that, was someone worth keeping around. 

“I- I think they found Anna,” Sam kept going, watching the room over Nick’s shoulder, giving a running commentary. “Dean’s shaking her hand― nope, he’s kissing it. She’s giggling... and your brother just punched him in the kidney.”

Nick had to turn around, catching the tail end of the exchange where Dean was rubbing the small of his back and saying something to his boyfriend while Anna watched, laughing happily at the two men. 

“You wanna go say hi to your sister?” Sam did an almost passable job of subtly nudging Nick deeper into the room. Bribing him with something that yes, he very much would like. 

“What I want is a big glass of wine and to get out of this tux,” he muttered to himself, slipping an arm through Sam’s and letting the younger man lead him deeper into the ballroom.

Leaning their heads close together, Sam whispered, “Daddy, you make it through until midnight like you promised Castiel you would, and I will get you both those thing.”

The accidental offer to undress Nick left him grinning all the way to Anna. 

In her nearly floor length dress made from something shiny and white and gold, she looked like an angel. When she hugged Nick, grinning up at him with her head on his chest to say, “So, you and Cas are banging brothers, that must be weird,” she showed that her clothes were nothing but a diversion. 

Nick leaned down to kiss her forehead, “I mean, a little? But you know, as long as we keep the light on so everyone knows for sure whose ass their grabbing, it’s actually kind of fun.” 

She laughed the sort of laugh that didn’t make any noise beyond a soft hiss of breath. “Aw, yeah. You get it, Nick.” Growing up the only girl sandwiched between four brothers, Anna had never exactly been kept on a pedestal; the boys had never treated her any different just because she started growing breasts one day. As a result she apparently hadn’t grown up to be the most demure and delicate kind of girl. 

It was easy to love her, and hard to forget what an absolute ass Nick had been for cutting her out of his life the past ten years. He sort of ignored the way that Sam and Dean had started talking about how one of the caterers walking by looked like they had bacon wrapped something, and how could Dean possibly still be hungry, and there’s always room for bacon. Nick squeezed his sister, lifting her off her feet, chuckling at her surprised little grunt and the way she kicked her feet. 

“How you doin’?” He asked with their faces much closer together.

“Missing the beach?” She looped her arms easily around his neck for balance, looking dreamily in the direction of home, which for her was Florida until she finished her biology study down there. She was possibly the only woman in the room with an honestly earned tan this time of year. “Counting the days until I can go back home to the sun and my cat and my girlfriend.” 

Nick sighed and nodded, he knew that feeling. He missed home too, even if ‘home’ didn’t mean a pet or a girlfriend. It was hard coming back here to New York after all this time. Like going back to your old elementary school and walking through halls that used to feel so big. Nick didn’t belong here anymore than Anna did. Not anymore. 

“Hey… You and me, we’re ok, right?” He asked in a way that he hoped seemed like the answer didn’t actually matter that much to him. 

“Course we are, Luci.” She kissed the tip of his nose, knowing exactly what he was talking about so perfectly. “I mean, I’m still going to hold it against you that you left me alone with the three stooges, but you’re back now.” 

“I’m… I’m not actually  _ back _ ―”

Grinning that same grin that Gabriel used to get when secrets were being shared, Anna glanced over in Sam’s direction and back up at her brother. “Yeah. Sure. You’ve got work and all that stuff. But you’re going to actually start talking to us all again, right?”

“Well… maybe not Mike if I can help it,” Nick surprised himself when he realised he was mostly joking. Oddly, the visceral ‘no Michael’ reaction wasn’t where he’d last left it. 

“I want nothing to do with that mess,” she made a dismissive noise, content to dangle there in his arms. “But I’m going to point out that you both found someone better than ‘Trophy Wife Barbie’ and maybe it’s time you both get the hell over it and start coming home to visit sometimes. Gabe could use the good influence, Cas might actually like to get to know you, and Dad misses you like crazy.”

He couldn’t hold her up forever, slowly letting her sink down until her feet touched the floor. Nick made a face, like this wasn’t some kind of beautiful heartwarming compliment, but a lecture. He knew he’d screwed up by not dealing with his problems. Her reminder of past childishness didn’t make him feel any better about it. 

Though it took a lot out of him, feeling every bit like surrender, Nick promised her that he would be back.

Sam piped up suddenly. “Once a month, right?” 

“What? No,” Nick hastily shook his head.

“Once a month,” the kid repeated with no apology to him, grinning at Nick. “Remember, we talked about this. I wanted you every weekend, which just isn’t feasible, so this was our compromise.”

They had reached no such deal. No conversation of this sort had ever taken place. “I’ve got... I’m going to have papers to grade and―”

“Look at that puppy face,” Anna coaxed, elbowing Nick harder than necessary. “Look at your boyfriend. You can’t say no to him. What are you, a monster?”

Sam was not technically his boyfriend in any stretch of the imagination, and everyone in this circle knew that other than Anna. 

Oddly, no one moved to correct her.

“Once a month,” Nick agreed somewhat reluctantly, mentally rearranging his schedule and budgeting for an international flight every few weeks. There was no telling how long he’d be able to keep it up, or what sort of helpless, idealistic bullshit he was hoping to earn in agreeing to return. 

But Sam grinned.

Did Nick need anything more than that stupid grin and the joking threat that followed? 

“Good, because I already told you what happens if you try and vanish on me, old man.”

“I know. I know,” Nick left his sister’s side to pull an arm back through Sam’s, wanting that safe sort of feeling that came with standing in the shadow of the only person in the room taller than himself. “You come to France and kick my ass.” 

Twisting a little, Sam unhooked their limbs so that he could slid his arm around Nick’s waist, resting one of his very warm hands too low to still be considered on the small of his back, and it was slightly horrifying. Nick wondered if this bottomed out falling sort of feeling was the same that Sam had gotten during their ‘first date’ at Mom and Dad’s anniversary dinner. A couple times that night, Nick had pulled the younger man in with a hand to his back. It was far too intimate. How the hell had he managed to get away with manhandling the kid on their first night out? 

Sam also kissed Nick’s temple, a movement too startling to even register immediately. The kid didn’t need to… there was literally no good reason to put his mouth on Nick. They weren’t really playing up the ‘fake boyfriend’ aspect anymore, seeing as at least half of Nick’s family already knew the truth. They could easily just be honest about being friends. 

But no. 

Sam had kissed him, in public, and kept his mouth against Nick’s skin long enough to whisper, “Don’t laugh about it, Daddy. I’m dead serious about not losing you.”

Nick tried to form a rebuttal, some kind of self defense against the way his heart fluttered, but Dean had him covered with a great distraction.

“Dude, did you just call him  _ ‘Daddy’ _ ?”

The noise that came out of Sam was undignified at best, the kid’s cheeks turning as red as Anna’s hair.

In a way that was almost defensive of Sam and Nick’s general delinquency, Castiel lectured his boyfriend with a, “I really don’t feel that you have any room to be kink shaming your brother, Dean.”

Color crept into Dean’s cheeks and the guy made a few half hearted attempts at defending himself before crossing his arms over his chest and nodding towards one of the caterers walking a few yards away. “I’m going to go see what’s with the bacon wrapped whatever,” and then he basically ran away. 

It brought so many questions to Nick’s mind, but also sort of made him like Dean a little more, and he hated that.

“Well,” Anna looked so much more than charmed by that whole interaction. “He seems  _ fun _ , Cas.”

With a longing sort of sigh, their youngest brother watched his boyfriend walking away. “I’m going to marry that man.”

A startling declaration.

Yes, Nick had been there during dinner. He’d seen the lovesick way that Dean and Cassy watched each other, how they found any excuse to touch one another, all those soft smiles and warm laughs. Love was one thing. Marriage was a whole other.

“You…” the words caught in Sam’s throat, this wild and happy and confused look making him light up like a little kid. “You think you and Dean might… might tie the knot?”

Another wistful sigh, this time partnered with a shrug. “I haven’t asked him yet… maybe don’t tell him about it?” Castiel refocused, looking up at Sam with a narrow eyed sort of look that was almost like a threat. “I think traditionally these sorts of things are supposed to be a surprise, also I haven’t introduced him to my parents yet, and their feelings on him will dictate if I’ll have to wait until I finish my medical internship before I can ask. They are, after all, helping me pay my bills, and Mom has always been the sort of person to try and control situations with money.” 

It was honest.

Maybe a little more honest than Sam had been ready for, if his stunned wide eyed expression was any indication.

Nick leaned into his friend, nudging, trying to jar that stunned expression loose. “You two won’t suddenly be brother in laws tonight, so don’t worry about it. And, Cassy, your boy is too handsome for his own good. Go save him.”

Turning too fast, Castiel zeroed in on his wayward boyfriend who looked to have caught the attention of no less than three women with bare ring fingers and very white smiles. 

To his credit, Dean looked like he was attempting to remove himself from the very friendly conversation, sending furtive glances back towards the men he came in with. A look like relief coming over him the moment that Castiel was in grabbing distance, snaking an arm around the shorter man’s shoulders and easily introducing the women to the man at his side. 

From his safe distance nearly halfway across the room, Nick was happy for them. 

Just because he’d personally given up on the idea of love for himself, didn’t mean that other people weren’t allowed to indulge; and his baby brother deserved nothing in life other than happiness. Dean, maybe less so. Jury was still out on that one.

“God, I hope this isn’t a phase for Cas,” Anna shook her head, turning away from the long distance surveyal of her younger brother, to look up at her older brother. “Ya’ know?”

“Ready to not be the only queer sibling?”

Raising one perfect eyebrow, Anna looked at Nick, then Sam, and back at Nick. “Yeah, ok.”

“I don’t count,” he tried to argue―and Sam didn’t help at all by straightening Nick’s tie, and with his other hand at the small of Nick’s back it was very near a hug. “I  _ don’t _ count.”

Laughing a little too happily, she asked for clarification, “As queer, or as a sibling? Because I’ve got bad news for you on both accounts.”

When the ability to deny was taken off the table, the next best option was to accept.

Nick let out a breath of surrender and momentarily rested his head against Sam’s shoulder. It was a warm and firm place to place his cheek and there were zero regrets.

“Mmhmm,” she nodded like she’d won. “I’ll let you two mingle like real adults. I see an ex that I need to go tell to fuck off.” Anna nodded up to the men who towered over her before gliding off across the room, picking up a glass of champagne as she went. 

“That…” Sam chuckled as he watched the redhead go. “That is the look of a woman going to go fuck someone up. Remind me never to make your sister mad.”

His own laughter never left his chest, just this soft rumble of sound that died too quickly because he saw who it was that Anna was making a Beeline towards. The leggy blonde wearing the black and sparkly dress wasn’t one of Anna’s ex girlfriends, it was one of his.

“Can we leave?”

Amused, Sam glanced back at him, their faces far too close together. “No. You promised Cas you’d stay until midnight.”

The kid didn’t understand and Nick couldn’t expect him to. 

“Can we please sit down then? You’re like a lighthouse, standing over everyone here, being all noticeable and―”

“Yeah, yeah, we can sit.” worry tightened the edges of Sam’s eyes, picking up at least a touch of Nick’s discomfort. With that warm hand cupping the base of Nick’s spine, the younger man had no difficulties steering him to one of the back corners of the room where lighting was dimmed over the dozen or so small round tables. They barely had taken their seats when a perky little caterer swung by with a tray of tall champagne flutes.

Sam took one with a smile and a soft thank you, Nick asked with some hope, “Anything stronger in the back?”

Probably not even old enough to be serving alcohol, the kid grinned, “Of course, what can I get you?” 

“Vodka sour?”

Instantly, Sam stopped the kid, touching a hand to his tray. “Can you get him a rum and coke, heavy on the coke?”

The young man, with his careful smile and his black apron nodded slowly, “Of course,” before shuffling off to go get the drink. 

Sam turned to look at Nick, arm looping around the back of his chair in a way that used to feel possessive but now felt overly protective. “You ok?”

“Always.”

“ _ Nick _ ,” Sam’s voice dropped to a worried whisper. “Is it just too many people? We can step outside for a bit if you need.”

“It’s just one single person.” Nick could see Anna far across the room, talking to Lilith, both women close and laughing polite laughs that undoubtedly were disingenuous. Out of stubbornness, Nick pulled off his glasses and tucked them in to the inner pocket of his jacket. He wasn’t going to run away (and not just because Sam had already told him no), but he could still hide. Like the monsters under his childhood bed, if he couldn’t see them then they couldn’t see him. “I’m counting on you,  _ mon chou _ . You let me know if that woman comes any closer. If I have to watch her I’m going to be jumping out of my skin all night.”

“Not a fan of your sister’s ex?” Sam asked cautiously.

The noise out of Nick was small and ugly, but almost like a laugh. “Far as I know there was never anything between them. But who knows. Lilith was obviously not that discriminating with which Novak she was fucking.”

Sam nodded in slow understanding, letting out an almost soundless, “ _ Oh _ .” 

“Yeah, ‘ _ oooh _ ’.”

“She’s… really pretty.”

“Thanks, Sam.” Nick hadn’t look all that closely. For sanity sake, he’d looked away the instant he’d recognized the silhouette. Even across a crowded room. Even after ten years. He hadn’t managed to forget the curve of those breasts or hips. The way she stood, how she held herself, grafiti left on the walls of his memories. 

“Sorry,” the younger man muttered.

“No. It’s fair.” He couldn’t blame Sam for this. Castiel he could blame, his little brother making him promise to come to this stupid party while very likely knowing who would be invited. “She was never movie star kind of pretty, but she had this girl next door, take you home to meet my mom, sort of look to her. Hasn’t changed?” Nick was uncomfortably aware of the way that his friend was still looking in that direction. 

“I mean… she’s,” Sam managed to look passably guilty for ogling the distant woman, “… she’s ok I guess.”

“You are a terrible liar.”

Arm still resting on the back of Nick’s chair, Sam’s hand tenderly smacked Nick’s shoulder, the kid laughing a little tight. “Ok, but when you told me you were engaged back when you were my age you didn’t mention the fact that she’s gorgeous and that next to her I’ve got to look like the world’s most awkward puppy.” 

“I… I didn’t know we were comparing you two.” Nick rubbed a thumb over his lower lip, scrubbing uneasily as he collected his thoughts. “That’s kind of one of those apples vs. oranges situations, don’t you think?”

“Technically. Yes. You were in love with her and I’m the poor sucker your brother bet that you couldn’t take out on a date, who was hard up enough for cash to agree to be your fake boyfriend for a few nights.”

Even if all of that was painfully true, it didn’t mean that Nick had to agree with it. “I’m not the same person I was ten years ago… or three weeks ago.”

“Yeah, well even if? She’s  _ still _ beautiful, and  I’ve got some stiff competition.”

If he wasn’t fairly certain that he’d be ruthlessly smacked down, he’d have turned his face towards Sam’s and kissed the younger man just to prove a point. Instead, like the well restrained and polite adult that he knew he wasn’t, he smiled tightly and assured, “Hardly,  _ mon chou _ . I always leave a party with the one I came in with. Also, from what I hear, she’s now married to my dad’s business partner.” Nick could write a list as long as he was tall of all the reasons that Sam didn’t need to worry about Lilith, but he could just as easily sum it all up with a pointed, “ _ and _ , I hate her.”

“Alright. Alright,” Sam soothed, laughing― 

Nick realised he might have put a bit more heat into his declaration of hatred than wholly necessary. Still, he wasn’t about to apologise. “Fair warning, condescending boyfriends get punched in the thigh.”

Still laughing, not understanding the seriousness of this threat, Sam asked, “Specifically in the thigh? Is that just to fake boyfriends or all boyfriends? I mean, is there an anatomical chart I can reference as technically I’m just a normal friend, or―”

There was a particular way that Nick had learned to hit when he was a kid, tight fist all except for the middle finger that was left slightly curled, a hard point to add a little extra injury to the jab. Kid stuff. Petty. He knew from experience that Sam would have a quarter sized bruise welling up later in the night. 

Two quarter sized bruises, because after the first awkwardly angled punch under the table Sam jumped and laughed and earned himself a second one. 

Still laughing, eyes bright and dimples cheekily mocking, Sam caught both Nick’s hands in his own, resting them all on the table top where they couldn’t do any damage. “Ok, oww?”

“I did warn you.” Nick said instead of any kind of apology, calming down, liking the way that his hands fit in the younger man’s. He was fairly certain that Sam’s hands were the only ones he’d ever held that were bigger than his. It was a nice change. “But nooo, you’ve just got to be an ass.”

“Figured you were getting lonely doing it all by yourself… hey, for the sake of all these strangers around here that I’ll never see again in my life, are we will still  _ ‘dating’ _ ?” The air quotes were evident even if the kid’s hands were occupied holding Nick’s.

“I suppose?” Not for anyone’s benefit other than his own. What had started as a device to annoy his family, and loosely as a bluff to prove to Gabriel that he could actually do what he’d boasted that he could, was now just an excuse to hold Sam’s hands. 

“You  _ suppose _ ,” he made a rumble of sound, not quite a laugh, and leaned across that small space between them to touch his face to Nick’s, nuzzling lightly into him, pressing the softest kiss into the hollow of his cheek. 

Heat curled through Nick’s chest, up his neck and cheeks, and he hoped that their corner of the room was dark enough to hide it. “Are we marking our territory like teenagers now?”

“Should I have warned you about that?” Sam whispered in his ear. “I’m the possessive type of fake boyfriend.”

“Oh no,” Nick lamented with a laugh, leaning into the younger man, resisting the urge to reach up and pet him. “That’s my favorite type of fake boyfriend.”

Leaning back enough to look at Nick, Sam raised an eyebrow. “You’ve had many?” 

“Just you,  _ mon chere _ , and really I think one’s enough. Don’t you?”

The young man who had taken Nick’s drink request ghosted by, placing a dark drink on the table before drifting back into the crowd. 

Sam watched him go before slowly picking up his champagne and taking a slow slip. Hands to himself. Regrettably. “Can’t say I’m eager to go out and do it a second time.”

Objectively it wasn’t a great rum and coke, but such a simple drink was hard to mess up so Nick had a feeling that his disinterest in it had more to do with his own slightly aggravated state. “If I could go back I wouldn’t even do it the one time. I’d punch Gabe right in his weasley little face for even making the bet.”

With a strange kind of smile, Sam nodded slowly. “It… it  _ was  _ a pretty stupid bet… but you did get me out of it?”

“Did I?”

The muscle in Sam’s jaw popped as he ground his teeth and he didn’t seem to have an answer. He did reach over with his champagne glass and clink it against Nick’s, so that was something. An undefined something. 

Nick wasn’t dumb enough to ask his question again. 

He nursed his drink and they talked about a whole lot of nothing. It was a nice distraction from the room full of people all enjoying themselves. The two of them tucked away in a corner like they were at a seperate party all alone. A party at which Sam drank quite a few glasses of champagne―but he was a big boy and allowed to drink as much as he wanted.

Like their first ‘date’ all over again, Nick was fully prepared to hold the kid’s hair back later if need be. After all, that’s what fake boyfriend’s were for. 

Probably. 

Sad as it was to admit, over the last few weeks he’d been a better fake boyfriend to Sam than he’d been a real boyfriend to anyone else for years and years. It was a real shame to have to say goodbye to such a good thing. 

“You know, if Dean and Cassy actually do get married we’ll be brother-in-laws,” half joking, Nick was happy that he’d still have a guaranteed way to keep his Sam. 

Sam rolled his eyes, not appreciating the humor of this situation. “Apparently only  _ if _ your parents let them?”

“Excuse you,” Nick was not one to defend his family, unless there was a grievous inaccuracy to correct. He did love correcting people. “ Don’t talk about my baby brother like that.  Cassy said Dad and Mom’s approval dictated  _ when _ he’d ask, not if he would.”

Laughing through his nose, Sam finished off another glass of champagne. “Who would want to marry Dean?” 

“As someone who has kissed that man very thoroughly? I got to say I can see the allure to the idea of marriage as a means of easy access to that mouth.”

Sam scowled, then laughed, shook his head, and settled back in a quiet frown that didn’t match the glint in his eyes.

“Have you ever kissed him?” Nick challenged. “No. So you don’t get to get judgey, you beautiful drunk college boy.”

Sam was the sort of drunk that got rosy cheeked and glassy eyed, and for the fact that that healthy pink color was so noticeable under the dim lighting meant that there was no hope at all that Nick’s earlier blush had gone unnoticed. 

“I’m _not_ drunk,” the kid argued while wearing such a grin.

“But you  _ are _ beautiful?”

“You sure seem to think so,” Sam sounded like he was teasing, but his eyes were suddenly tracking someone across the room, distracted. “You’ve told me a few times now… and it wouldn’t feel right to argue with you about it.” 

Dread coiled in Nick’s gut and he braced himself as he turned to look over his shoulder, expecting only the worst. Narrowing his eyes at the crowd, he didn’t see anyone immediately familiar to worry him. No one that would have been interesting enough to turn around for.

“Friend of yours?” Sam asked, nodding towards the mass of people, being very non specific. 

Nick squinted a little harder, trying to discern one slightly out of focus human from the next. A woman in slacks and a vest had broken free from the pack, dark hair in tight natural curls, cut short. As she drew closer it was evident that she had one of those charming kinds of smiles, her cheeks dimpling in that way that was so very damning to a person like Nick. She had pleasant curves, extra weight that she carried well, and one of those professional types of cameras that hung heavy around her neck. 

She was some flavor of journalist, and Nick would attempt to not hold that against her. 

“Gentlemen,” she greeted, “enjoying yourselves? I hope I’m not interrupting?”

Sam probably didn’t know how to be anything other than polite, and Nick was weak for all females (regardless of whether or not they were interrupting), so he simply gestured with a hand to the unoccupied side of their table. 

The cute little reporter seated herself, resting her camera on the tabletop. “I’m Kylee Hughes, with Prestige magazine. We’re covering a bunch of these New Year’s parties across the city. We’re looking to get a picture of midnight and it’s my job to collect a few people that wouldn’t mind being in the middle of things. Your brother suggested I come talk to you?”

Now, Castiel was the only brother of Nick’s that was here (as far as he’d noticed at least), and the idea of his baby brother throwing him under this particular bus was a little impressive.

Kylee used one of those sorts of smiles that probably convinced most people to say yes. “Our magazine has always been a big supporter of gay rights, and we’d love to get a few influential couples front and center. You know how it goes, best foot forward and all that.”

Indeed, Nick knew all about that. He was overly familiar with the practice of hand picking people for a ‘candid’ photo, making everything this beautifully tailored lie of glitz and perfection and smiles. It’s how the wedding photos for his Dad and Stepmom had gone, it’s how graduation and every single fundraising event he’d even been dragged to had ever been staged. Personally, he was not a fan. Photos like those were nothing but pleasant lies for public consumption. Look how much fun we’re having. Look how perfect our lives are. 

“As long as the two of you wouldn’t mind doing your New Year’s kiss for the magazine,” Kylee’s smile gentled on the edges, almost like she was a little timid to lay out the whole offer. “I know public affection isn’t everyone’s thing, but like I said, your brother pointed me in your direction.”

Positive now that this is not something that Castiel would volunteer him for, he squinted out at the crowd, wondering where Gabriel was hiding. “Which brother was that again?” Nick asked― 

At the same time that Sam gave a smile and an easy, “Sure. I don’t see why not.”

Nick didn’t hear Kylee’s answer. He was too busy blinking at the young man beside him, wondering what the hell kind of answer that was. “ _ Really _ ?”

“Just for a picture? Yeah, I mean… as long as you don’t mind?” Sam managed to look sheepish as if he too suddenly caught up with the offer on the table. “It’s just a picture… supporting gay rights… and our brothers.”

That was a weak excused.

But still, sort of a good one. 

Right?

Logic in it. 

Logic all over it. 

People kiss on New Year’s.

Sam and Nick were people. 

And though he hadn’t been willing to toy with the idea of ever asking Sam for a kiss because of the friendship ruining levels of stupid a request like that would carry―if the kid was going to offer, even just a single kiss for publicity, there really wasn’t a good reason to say no.

A kiss for the wrong reasons was almost as good as a kiss for the right reasons.

‘Right reasons’ that Nick wished he didn’t have, and didn’t have to clamp down and bury, because it would make going home in two days so much easier.

“As- as long as you don’t mind,” Nick felt like he was stumbling over himself, so thankful for all the ambient noise in the large room to mask whatever nervousness there was to his words. After all, as a man who remembered when guys would get their asses kicked if they so much as held hands in public, he sort of loved that his home state had passed laws making love legal. Why not flaunt that right a little, even if it was just for pretend. 

Playing with his once more empty glass, Sam grinned. “Cas we do that kiss from the sailor kissing the nurse in Times Square on V-J Day?”

Nick knew the picture. 

And Nick laughed a little too hard at the idea. This hysterical feeling setting into his chest.

“Oh, I love it,” Kylee lightly clapped her hands, encouraging, obviously happy to have wrangled more willing victims. She pulled the men away from their table and showed them where she’d be taking the picture from, the general area where she’d want them to stand, then scurried off to collect more attractive people. 

It left Nick looking out the tall glass windows with a sweeping view of the glittering city lights, of the flow of traffic down bellow like a golden white stream. Behind him was a sea of people he didn’t know, which somehow managed to be a worse fate, and if it hadn’t been for Sam’s arm firmly around his waist then he would have bolted.

“I can’t do this,” he breathed, feeling the people at his back like a physical weight.

“I-I should have asked you before agreeing,” Sam beautifully misunderstood in that way of his. “I just figured that it went along with the whole ‘fake boyfriend’ thing that we’ve been doing off and on for the past few week. We don’t actually have to if―”

“Seem to remember this whole thing starting off with us both agreeing that there wouldn’t be any kissing.” Nick had no idea why he was bringing that up right now, but he was scrambling to find his footing on the wrong side of the room and he was grasping to fill up his side of this conversation while appearing calm and collected.  

“Like I said, we don’t have to.” Sam was not making eye contact, obviously uncomfortable. “It just fit with the… with the everything else. And it was for a good cause?”

“It’s fine. It’s fine,” Nick was hissing more to himself than the other man, trying to settle his thoughts on anything other than the fact that he’d lost sight of the room’s exit. 

“Forget about it. She just seemed really excited and I―”

“Fuck, Sam. It’s one little kiss for a picture, not a wedding night,” and there was that something enough to distract him from the anxiety of being lost in a crowd. If he didn’t calm down he would lose his very stupid excuse to kiss this man that he’d fallen for. It was the sort of ‘you only get one chance at this’ kinds of feelings. Even if it was just a little awkward kiss between friends, he wanted to take it, to take it back home with him and pine properly over this moose of a man with six thousand miles of safety between them where Nick would be too far away to screw anything up. “I’ve done a lot worse with people I liked a lot less than you.”

“Ah, yes. What every man wants to hear before kissing his fake boyfriend for the first time.”

Nick could have chosen to hang a hell of a lot of significance on the use of the word ‘first’, but he chose self preservation, and accepted that his friend was teasing him. “Don’t worry, Sammy. I’ll be gentle with you.”

With a strange kind of laugh, Sam turned Nick in the circle of his arm so that they were facing one another. He also took one of Nick’s hands in his own and held it up at shoulder height.

“If what I think that you’re doing, is what you’re actually doing, you better not be.” Nick warned with no real threat behind it.

“Come on, old man,” came the gentle urging, as Sam slowly started to rock them in time to the music playing in the background. They weren’t the only couple out here dancing, but they were certainly the most awkward. “Anna danced with me at your parent’s anniversary thing. Now I’ve got this, and it’s probably the last opportunity I have to be  _ fancy _ .”

“This is stupid.”

“You’re stupid.”

“We look like two preteens at our first school dance. ”

“Nick? Shut up for once, and let me fake dance with my fake boyfriend.”

It was annoying just how much Nick liked Sam. 

Even though the kid accidentally stepped on his feet from time to time. 

“You know…” Sam started so conversationally, like the two of them weren’t slowly rocking back and forth on the edge of the dance floor like a pair of idiots, “it might not be a bad idea if we practiced.”

“Practiced?” It was a little late to practice dancing at this point.

“Well, yeah. I mean, I’d hate to ruin the picture by laughing… or missing and kissing your chin... or something.” Sam was pointedly looking down at their shoes, watching his steps as he mumbled just barely loud enough to be heard over the music and the chatter. “There’s always weird logistics and angles to work out when you kiss someone new for the first time.”

Despite the fact that never once had Nick ‘missed’ when he’d wanted to kiss someone, he found himself nodding along vigorously in agreement. “That’s probably a very good idea. There’s only going to be the one midnight and it would be just awful to ruin that picture for the nice photographer.” 

Sam looked up, a warm sort of glow to his cheeks and a slightly glassiness to his eyes. He  _ had _ finished off at least six glasses of champagne, enough to make even this mountain of boyish charm tipsy.

And even ‘a little bit tipsy’ rang some alarms in Nick. He should cease the dancing and tell his friend that they should go walk themselves home, that the cold night air would do them both some good―but Nick couldn’t always be the good guy. 

He leaned in, wetting his lips with the nervous tip of his tongue, tilting his head a touch to the right so that they wouldn’t mash their noses. Sam slowed their rhythmless rocking, and before he could come down to meet Nick, Michael was stepping between them, an arm around both their shoulders.

“Sorry to cut in, but I need to borrow my brother.”

A simple mantra of  _ I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you _ ran through Nick’s mind as he fixed his older brother with a withering glare.

It was too damn late, Sam was releasing Nick. One of them had had sweaty hands, Nick feeling cold and clammy now that they weren’t holding on to one another. 

“Just for a few minutes,” Michael was explaining as Sam pushed the older man’s arm off him a little more roughly than was called for. Nick’s stupid brother didn’t seem to take notice of the mishandeling, but Mike had never been the sort of person to show fear in the face of danger. “I’ll give him right back afterwards, I promise.”

Ignoring Michael just as well as Michael was ignoring him, Sam ran a hand through his hair and looked to Nick for direction.

“Yeah, it’s fine.” It absolutely was not. Nick, however, was an adult and didn’t need his boyfriend there as moral support just so he could talk to his own brother. “I’ll meet you over at that ridiculous ice sculpture near the bar?” 

With a sharp nod and a sour look towards Michael, Sam walked off into the crowd, moving through the people like a buoy through waves, tall enough to be seen no matter how far away he went. 

Nick watching his friend with this gutted, weak sort of feeling, before turning on his older brother, “If you don’t have a fucking great reason for interrupting I’m going to have to kill you in front of all of these witnesses.” 

“Do you always have to be so over dramatic, Nicky?” The smallest hook of amusement tugged at a corner of Michael’s mouth. 

It’s not like he could come out and explain to his brother that he’d been one breath away from ‘practice kissing’ on the most sarcastic and beautiful man he’d ever met. “What? What the hell do you want, Mike?”

“You still have that problem with crowds, Nicky?”

Not at all seething with sarcasm, Nick asked, “What do you think?”

With that same hook of a smile, Michael took Sam’s place, one hand slipping to the small of Nick’s back as they started a slow waltz.

Too startled to pull away, for about three seconds Nick just let it happen.“You fuckin’ kidding me with this?” 

“Language.”

“Your kids aren’t here, Mike.” Nick reminded before demanding, “What is happening and why?”

“So, we were dropping the girls off at Dad’s and he mentions to me that he’s thinking of asking you to come back to work, and how do I think you’d react if he asks.”

Business. 

God save him, they were going to talk about business. He settled firmly into his best poker face before asking, “And you told him?”

“Told him you were going home.”

“Damn right I’m going home.”

“And not even a pretty college boy who you plan to kiss at midnight can change your mind?”

“Fuck you, Mike.” He tried to disengage from the dancing that never should have gone on for this long, but his brother had grown stronger than him over the years and Nick found himself trapped unless he was willing to make a very large spectacle. At least he knew he’d been right in assuming that this business of kissing for a picture was a bit too convoluted and sneaky-feeling for Castiel. “You’re a real son of a bitch, you know that?”

“You think I’m bad? You should meet my brother Nicholas,” Mike said without missing a beat. “There was this one time that he accidently seduced this handsome brunette,  _ and  _ himself, just because he was trying to win a bet with our younger brother.”

“Gabe’s got nothing to do with why I’m here tonight.” Nick felt like he was scrambling again, trying to keep his footing while his brother read him like an open book. “I promised Cassy I would come.”

“And you making pretty eyes at your boy all night? Is that for Cas too, or Gabe… or for yourself?” 

“What do you want? You want me to tell you I’m in love with the kid?”

“I want you not to leave again, Nick.” Michael said so easily, the whole of his demeanor shifting to something mistakable for gentleness. “Or, I want you to be happy. Or whatever the hell you want to hear from me. Whatever I can say that means you not disappearing on us again. And if you wont stay for me, or for any of the rest of us, then I’m perfectly fine using that nice young man who’s far too good for you as bait, if that’s what it takes.” 

Nick let his brother dance him in a slow circle, conflicted with what direction he wanted to drag this awful conversation. “You could… I don’t know, maybe try apologising?”

“...for?”

“What do you think for?”

Even before he’d asked, Michael must have known, because he didn’t miss a beat in answering Nick. “She married someone else, man. Someone who wasn’t you and wasn’t me. She moved on. Maybe you might want to consider doing the same.”

“You still can’t admit you were wrong, can you?”

Michael’s hand was a firm as a railway spike along Nick’s spine. “You look me in the eye, Nicky, you look me dead in the eye and tell me you didn’t know that me and her were still together the first time you fucked her.”

The first time... was unfair for Mike to even bring up. Nick had only known Lilith for two very confusing weeks. He hated how fast he’d fallen for his brother’s girlfriend. He hadn’t done it on purpose. And then Lilith had asked her boyfriend for quite the twenty-first birthday present. She’d wanted Michael and his twin brother to take her out for dinner, and drinks, and back to bed. It was the first and only time that they’d ever shared a woman and neither of them had brought it up since it had happened. 

“Or the second time? Or the third time? Oh, or that one time on my desk after you and me had a fight about Dad offering you the keys to the kingdom and you throwing a fit because ‘you had no freedom and I got to do whatever I wanted to with my life and it wasn’t fair’?”

“You knew about that?”

“Course I knew about it. I come back to my office and it smells like sex and Lil had your teeth marks on her hips.”

The song faded to an end, but there was no release from his brother’s relentless conversation. Before Nick could fight his way to freedom, another song struck up, something a little faster that was pointedly ignored in favor of the continued deathgrip that Michael had on him.

“My point, Nicky, is that I’ll apologise for being a spiteful kid if you will. Because we  _ were  _ kids back then, and ten years is a damn long time to be hung up about a woman that neither of us even likes anymore.” 

“She’s here tonight.” Nick said instead of anything remotely sensible.

Michael tripped over his own feet, their dance grinding to a halt. “I really hope that you’re just bringing that up because you like to fight and you hate that I think you and your Sam are cute together.”

Mostly. Yes. It was somewhere between funny and painful how well his brother could read him. “You think me and Sam are cute?”

“I think when you’re with him you look like you’ve forgotten the rest of the world exists, and that’s probably a pretty damn good reason to consider staying… don’t you think?”

There was no reason at all to point out that Nick had gone and screwed himself over by getting all kinds of mixed up feelings for his friend. His straight friend who liked to joke around in ways that sometimes felt like torture. Not that Mike necessarily knew that second part so it was possible that his big brother wasn’t rubbing it in, but thought he was making a good and fair point. 

Either way, Nick couldn’t help but laugh, “Wow, I… I hate you so much right now.”

Michael laughed too, in that quiet sort of way that he had since they were kids, like he was afraid someone might hear him and think he had a sense of humor or something. “You hate that, just like you, I’m always right.”

“Always right and never sorry.”

“It  _ is  _ the Novak way.”

Unwilling, Nick joined in the strained laughter, letting the happy sound die on his lips as his older brother rather suddenly released him and Nick was left standing in that sea of people without an anchor.

He was too proud to reach out to his brother, but he could hold his own elbows and pointedly not look around himself as that tickle of anxiety clutched at him once more.

“It’s almost midnight, Nicky.” Mike glanced down at his watch, and held it out as quiet proof. “Go find your Sam. Kiss him. Fall stupid in love.  _ Tell him about it _ . Hell, tell yourself about it since apparently it’s still a mystery to you. Admit that you have a damn reason to stay and then  _ stay _ . Whatever reason you need, and if you can’t come up with a good one on your own then do it because we all know that you’re everyone’s favorite brother and if you’re here you can rub it in my face.”

Nick didn’t want or need a pep talk, but oddly he found himself grateful for the words all the same. “You go find that pretty wife of yours an’ give her a kiss for me. Ok?”

“Of course.” Michael ducked his head, an oddly self conscious movement. “If I don’t see you again before you head out, goodnight.”

“Yeah.”

“And you know I love you?”

Which wasn't anything that Nick had wanted to hear, and every bit something that Nick had needed to hear. He laughed and he felt like he couldn’t get enough breath. “Wow, way to ruin the moment, Mikey.” 

His brother smacked him on the back, hard enough to leave a bruise and to make Nick stumble to keep his feet under himself. 

“And I’m sorry, you know, for whatever you need to hear me say I’m sorry for.” Mike smiled with too much teeth. More growl than grin, not a hint of weakness to be seen.

“That’s- that’s not a real apology.”

Mike stood there, looking up at him, and apparently it  _ was _ an apology. There was ten plus years of regret in those eyes. Unmistakably.

“Same,” Nick said after almost too long.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re, uh, you’re still going to run away back home and pretend that you’re not in love with that boy, aren’t you?”

“It’s like you can read my mind.”

With a laugh that was hardly more than a pained noise, Michael shook his head. “You’re a real mess, you know that, Nicky?”

Oh, Nick knew. He was uncomfortably aware of the fact that he was basically a human dumpster fire. Still, he winked at his older brother, shooting him with both finger guns before turning on his heels and going straight for Sam like a homing pigeon. 

With or without his brother’s blessing, Nick would go kiss his friend at midnight, and tomorrow he’d say ‘goodbye’ instead of ‘I love you’, because the first option wasn’t permanent the second would be impossible to take back.

  
  
  
  
  



	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like I'm just sort of dancing my way in, doin' a little soft shoe, setting down this chapter, and dancing back out with a little jaz hands before anyone can say anything.   
> So for my benefit, imagine a tiny gal with big curly hair and glasses doing just that before you read this chapter.

The fact that Sam was giant made him easy to find in a crowd, a handsome beacon standing at least half a head above the rest of the room. Brushing past strangers, and a few faces that looked too familiar, Nick wove through the crowd and sidled up alongside his friend, resisting the urge to wrap his arms around the younger man, or to hide his face against one of those broad shoulders. Not that Nick needed a hug or anything. The almost overwhelming instinct to hide somewhere safe had welled up more than expected in the few seconds it took him to walk this whole way. 

“Hey, Daddy,” weather for his own gratification, or because he was just a protective and observant weirdo like that, Sam snaked an arm around Nick’s shoulders before pressing his mouth along his temple―not a kiss so much as an aggressive sigh against unexpecting skin. “Everything ok?” The question mumbled because he hadn’t bothered to pull back enough to be heard clearly.

For just a second, Nick considered explaining that his big brother expected him to come over here, kiss Sam, and fall helplessly in love with him. Instead he stuck with the usual, “Everything’s perfect.”

“Why do you always gotta’ lie to me?”

“Maybe I’m practicing. Trying to get better.”

“You’re gonna’ need  _ a lot _ more practice, Daddy.”

“Please…” Nick pleaded even though he knew he was wasting his breath. “Please stop calling me that.”

Sam laughed, his mouth still pressed warmly against the side of Nick’s head. “As long as it keeps distracting you from whatever makes you frown like you were when you walked over here, I’m going to keep on calling you  _ Daddy _ … maybe talking about how I’ve been a naughty boy, and that you can―”

“Stop!” Nick was laughing, but he was also cringing inwardly, squirming out from under Sam’s arm. “Stop, or I’m leaving you here and you can find a different Novak to take you home and … and give you a good  _ spanking _ .”

A startled laugh caught in the younger man’s throat and he pressed the back of a hand over his mouth to try and stifle the sound. 

It was sort of perfect how they could both be so amused and at the same time uncomfortable by the very same teasing. 

Somehow Nick had lost an awful lot of time, and he wondered how long he’d stood leaning against Sam before the kid had asked how he was doing. What felt like only a minute or two ago, Michael had been showing off his watch, that there was nearly ten minutes left until midnight, but now the chatter of the room had started to change and people were very suddenly starting to count down from thirty. It could only mean one thing. 

Eyes a little wide with something like panic, Sam seemed to realise it too, that the time was now, and that they weren’t where the photographer had told them to be. The younger man took his hand and pulled Nick along after him like a kid pulling a kite down the beach, only this beach was littered with laughing people in tuxedos and evening gowns and they had to bob and weave their way back towards the window. 

There was an empty bit of floor space where the photographer Kylee was holding aloft her camera, adjusting the lense to focus on the rather attractive group that she’d collected and framed against the twinkling skyline outside. 

_ Ten _

There was no time to asses the group, to seek out familiar faces, because Sam was pointedly setting Nick into place in front of him as if there were an X on the floor. 

_ Nine. _ _ _

All the sudden Nick got that feeling of being on a rollercoaster, when you start to crest the first hill and your heart starts to beat in a frantic sort of panic and you realise you never should have gotten on the ride in the first place.

_ Eight. _

“You sure it’s,”  _ Seven _ , “ok?” Sam needlessly asked again. Brow pinched in worry. 

“Not sure I can dip you,”  _ Six _ , “but I’ll give it a try?” 

_ Five. _

“Other way around.”

_ Four. _

“Other way?” Nick hardly got the words out before the floor was no longer firmly beneath him. He was held tightly in Sam’s arms, all balance and sense of up and down gone, but oddly very secure. 

_ Three _ .

For some reason, Nick had never realised that Sam was actually this strong and it was as delightful as it was terrifying. There was no doubt in his mind that the younger man wouldn’t drop him but that bottomed out feeling still left him gasping with anticipation and nerves. 

“This would be easier,”  _ Two _ , “if you were shorter.” Sam’s laugh was champagne sweet, odd kind of nevers in the kid too. 

“Sorry?” Nick tried to laugh but the sound caught in his throat. 

_ One _ .

_ Happy New Year! _

“Hap―” Nick made some attempt to shout in celebration along with the rest of the room, but the word was smothered under Sam’s kiss. Nothing careful and perfect for the camera about it. Sam kissed him with all the passion one would expect of a sailor returning from World War Two who grabbed up the first attractive woman he’d seen in god only knew how long, living up to the pose that he’d chosen. Authenticity at its finest, and no one was complaining. 

Shamelessly, Nick moaned, opening his mouth and taking in every perfect second of the slow, deep, rough kiss. One hand coming up to cup the side of Sam’s neck and then to settle in a deathgrip on the younger man’s collar and tie. 

Like all good things, it was over too soon. 

Cat calls (that sounded oddly like Dean’s voice) intruding on the moment. 

Then Nick was being set back upright and he was insanely grateful for the way that Sam kept an arm around him, because he was positive that his knees were not going to be able to hold him up for the next few seconds. 

Sam was grinning, biting his lower lip, cheeks flushed, eyes so bright. “Happy New Year, Luci.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re supposed to say it back.”

“Yeah.” Nick nodded. Then understood. “Happy New Year, Sam.”

Probably no one knew what the next thing was  _ supposed _ to be, but rather suddenly Sam was leaning back in, a possible second kiss denied as both of them found themselves suddenly being smacked on the back. 

Choking only a little, Nick looked over to see Dean grinning at them a little too widely.

“Happy New Year, you sons of bitches.”

Sam repeated the sentiment to his older brother, slowly letting go of Nick to half turn and be a little more social and a little less whatever the hell just happened.

Only remotely aware of the rest of the room, Nick stood there mutely, watching Sam talking to Dean and Cassy who had probably been part of the ‘attractive people round up’ orchestrated by the photographer. His eyes might have been able to see the room, but he wasn’t really processing any of it. His mind playing that solitary kiss on repeat. The way he’d fit in the circle of Sam’s arms. The sweet taste of champagne on the other man’s tongue. The way that the evening kept on going and still his heart wouldn’t stop trying to beat out of his chest. 

He was going to over-think the hell out of this. 

“Hey,” someone was nudging him. Sam was nudging him, smiling and pulling close so conversationally like nothing at all out of the ordinary had just happened. “Sorry if that was… you know. I think I’ve had a little too much to drink tonight.”

“I ...evidently haven’t had enough.”

Sam laughed, but for just a moment looked oddly sad; and that brief spark of unexpected emotion slapped Nick right across the face, brought him back from whatever confusing place that his mind had wandered off to. 

“Hey, umm, are we going to catch a ride back with Cas and Dean?” Sam was back to his normal smiling self without a single hint of anything amiss. 

“Traffic will be hell right now, and the apartment’s only five blocks from here. We may as well walk.” Aside from the fact that there was no way that Nick was getting in another car with those two handsy bastards again, he wanted any excuse that might exists to be alone with Sam. Even if alone might mean possibly having some intensely uncomfortable conversation about why Sam had momentarily looked like he’d seen a picture of a puppy with a broken leg.

“Alright.” Sam clapped him on the back, which officially meant that too many people had hit Nick’s shoulder tonight. “Well, if we’re walking I’m gonna’ hit the little boy’s room before we go.”

It was unlikely that anyone as adorable as Sam had ever walked the earth.

“Yeah, you do that,” Nick nodded, giving his friend a gentle shove in the right direction. He turned back to his little brother.

Only it seemed that Cassy was on the way out as well, if his sudden hug was any indication, “Will I see you again before you head back to France?”

Nick gave a one armed hug back in return, kissing his brother’s cheek in a desperate grasp at normalcy. “Maybe? But I’ll be back in a month.”

“ _ Really _ ?” Castiel looked up with more excitement than the situation warranted. “I thought you were just saying that to appease Sam.”

The things that Nick was considering doing in hopes of appeasing Sam. Anything. Any fucking thing. 

It was awful how right Michael could be. That bastard. 

“About a month. I’ll have to juggle around my schedule a bit, but yeah,” he smiled and it didn’t do him any good.

Cassy gave him a firm squeeze before letting go, beaming up at him like a kid at Christmas. 

No one should ever be that excited about the prospect of seeing Nick, but it did him some good. Still sort of giddy from that unexpected kiss, he turned to Dean and caught him up in a rough hug. 

The shorter man grunted and lightly patted at him, “Thanks?” Dean was chuckling softly, obviously amused that he was being included in the goodbye.

“You take care of my baby brother, make sure he gets home safe.”

“Same to you, old man… who  _ doesn’t  _ have a thing for my little brother.” Apparently it was just that obvious.

They held each other at arm’s length for a moment of inspection, like they were both debating if they wanted to trust their precious baby brother with a mess like this.

Dean started laughing again before offering a dubious, “Good luck?” 

“With?”

“Up to you, man.” Dean let go, turing to Castiel. “Can we see if they have any more of those bacon wrapped date things before we head out?” 

The two of them walking off in search of a parting snack, leaving Nick alone in that ever dreaded sea of people. It was apparently much more socially acceptable to stay longer, seeing as almost no one else looked interested in leaving yet, everyone still laughing, talking, dancing, and drinking. As if there had been any doubt in his own mind about the stunning efficacy of that kiss, Nick’s anxiety took a backseat in favor of replaying once more the bruising sort of way that Sam had helped him ring in the New Year. 

In a rather distracted way he wandered through the party goers, in the general direction of the restroom with the intention of meeting Sam half way. He caught a whiff of something, a perfume, and his steps ground to a halt. Sense memory taking over, replacing Sam’s warm embrace with memories of tangled sheets and soft curves, hips rising and falling slowly under his hands, staccato breaths, warm laughter that raised goosebumps along the back of his neck. 

No, that last part wasn’t a memory. That was Lilith sliding up alongside him, taking his arm like she owned him, purring a soft giggles far too close to his cheek. “You wouldn’t believe what a girl’s got to do to get you alone for a few seconds.”

Nick pulled away and turned to look at this siren of a woman, a decade worth of violence and hurt on the tip of his tongue. So much to say to her, and yet the only words he managed to get out were, “You look beautiful.”

She did. 

Time had been kind to Lilith. All that gentle softness of youth traded for sculpted perfection. Those same deep eyes Nick remembered so well, bright and amused over high cheekbones and a pleased smile.

“And look at you, Nicky. Between the beard and the young man you’ve been wearing all night I hardly recognised you.” The conversation almost civil, weirdly. “I’d heard you were back for a little, and I didn’t believe it.”

“It was just a short visit.”

“For your parent’s anniversary. I heard.” She reached out and straightened his tie, smoothing her hands over the shoulders of his coat, the touch so familiar and easy after all this time. The ridiculously sparkly wedding ring resting on her left hand like a snowflake. “You’re obviously doing well for yourself.”

“You too.” He wasn’t sure what else to say.

She hummed softly, same red lipstick she’d always worn highlighting a perfect smile. “I won’t keep you, Nicky. I just wanted to say hello. For old time’s sake.”

Nick felt gutted, looking at this woman he’d hated for so long and not being able to find any of that old venom. 

She took his arm again. “Walk with me to get my coat... for old time’s sake?”

A gentleman would, and despite the fact that Nick was nothing like a gentleman, he found himself walking his ex to the coat check. 

They had to leave the ballroom to do it, out in the hall of the hotel, walking towards the elevators and the smiling young girl leaning on the counter, who had taken Nick and Sam’s winter coats when they’d first come in. They made a detour, though, and Nick didn’t know how or when it happened. They were in the hall, and then they were in a small room with a few comfortable recliners and a counter and a sink. There was a passing awareness that the small placard on the door had read ‘Mother’s Lounge’, so this was probably meant to be a quiet place for nursing women to feed their children? But there wasn’t time to really puzzle it out, because Lilith in high heels was nearly as tall as Nick, which meant that she didn’t have to pull him down more than a startled few inches to kiss him. 

It wasn’t like kissing Sam. With Sam he’d had warning, he’d expected it. With Lilith all he could do for a few seconds was to stand there and breathe, stunned like an animal in headlights, his arms open wide at his sides because he had no idea what to do with them. He desperately hoped that it was in a reasonable amount of time, he managed to get his hands on Lilith’s shoulders with a strong intent to push her away. Only, it didn’t work like he’d expected it to, because seconds later he realized she was still there, and he was holding her close, and he was kissing her back, and she fit against him just like he remembered. 

It was the same taste of her lipstick, the same scent of her perfume, the same softness of her breast as she guided one of his hands down her body. Not that he needed the directions. Kissing Lilith felt like coming home. Familiar and so easy. He knew every part of this as he pushed her back, lifting her up to the countertop almost effortlessly.

She giggle against his mouth, legs hooking around his waist, running manicured nails through his hair. “God, I missed you.”

He laughed, or at least tried to, this wounded sort of sound crawling it’s way out of him as he pressed his forehead against hers. Catching his breath. 

Trying to catch his breath. 

Trying to remember how he got here, and why this was a bad thing―and with Lilith’s dress pushed up like it was he found it very hard to not notice that she had the most beautifully toned thighs. His hands shaking like an addict's as he followed like an invitation, fingertips brushing the curve of her hips under the silky fabric of her dress. No stockings. No panties. Just that uninterrupted line of her, and it was damning.

Her hands were far more sure than his, steady as she loosened his tie, making easy work of the first few buttons to his shirt. She kissed his throat, right along his hammering pulse, seeming to remember every inch of him as well as he remembered her. Teeth grazing the edge of his collarbone in that way that always made him melt in his shoes.

“Lil… no.” Absolutely zero force or confidence behind the word.

“No?” She looked up at with lidded eyes and a hungry smile. “Honey, I can count on one finger the times that you’ve told me ‘No’.” 

“Yeah, and we both know which finger that would be.” Nick could no longer see the shore. He was drowning and couldn’t remember if he’d ever known how to swim. 

Her laugh was hardly more than a purr, one of her hands slipping over his, guiding his fingers down to a very warm, damp place, and he growled when he kissed her this time. He could have her if he wanted her. He was very aware of that. And his body did, it wanted her in the worst kinds of ways. The same kind of cravings he used to get back when he was a trembling and sweaty kid weaning himself off of painkillers. After all this time, all he’d managed was to trade one addiction for another. There was always something self destructive to miss―and if it wasn’t the blissfully numb feeling he got from pills stolen out of his mom’s medicine cabinet, then it was the way Lilith breathed his name like a prayer, how tight she was as he pressed into her. 

Part of him had been craving this, but oddly, not as much as he used to, and he managed to shake his mind clear of at least a small part of that hungry fog. 

“No,” he found his voice, turning his face to the side and taking a deep breath that would have come much easier if not for the smell of her perfume. “You’re married now, and…” and there were other reasons and just because he couldn’t remember them all right now didn’t make them any less important.

“And don’t think for a second that you haven’t always been lying right there between me and him.” She stroked his cheek, tracing his lower lip with the edge of a nail. “Fergus wasn’t my first choice any more than I was his. He could never measure up to you, Nicky. You were always my favorite.” 

Which wasn’t the same as saying ‘I still love you’. 

Hell, it wasn’t even the same as saying ‘I  _ loved  _ you’, and Nick wondered if that would have made a difference to him. If not tonight, but maybe a few weeks ago, it might have meant something more.

Firmly, stubbornly, he planted both his hands along the soft inside curves of her knees. Collecting himself as best as he could. “Picking me over Mike doesn’t exactly count for much, since you... you never actually  _ picked _ one of us.”

“A girl’s not going to only drink rosé for the rest of her life, even if it’s her favorite.” She kissed the edge of his lips so gently, slowly turning his face back to hers, tempting.

“Lil,” Nick didn’t want to know the answer, but he still asked, “did you... did you  _ ever  _ actually love me?”

She kissed the tip of his nose, smiling so gently, “No, honey. No.”

“...no.” Not a question, just telling himself in case he missed it the first time. 

It was honest at least, which was more than he’d expected to get from her. 

Those few moments of mindless passion ebbing as his senses started to catch up.That old ache where his heart used to be coming back like an old friend. An anchor settling heavy into his chest.

“Nicky… Nicky, but I loved how much you loved me. That kind of devotion makes a girl feel  _ special _ . Like a princess.” She kissed him again, so soft, the most delicate press of lips. A kindness this time, not a coercion. “And believe me, I looked for someone else like you. Tried out a couple other Novaks, hoping that maybe it was a family trait, but―”

“A couple  _ other _ Novaks?” He had almost forgotten how mean she could be if she wanted; and when they were kids it had been fun. The two of them being spiteful and awful together, but never at each other. 

Being on the receiving end of such a deliberate cut was something else.

Her lipstick had worn off a bit, but her grin was no less beautiful or terrible. “You know, sampling the whole family of wine... if you will.”

“You… you  _ didn’t _ .” Nick wasn’t sure if he didn’t think that she  _ could _ or that his heart simply was refusing to accept how little this news was surprising to hear. 

“All but two,” she sounded almost proud. The woman had been working on her BA in psychology when Nick had left. She was smart. And she was clever. And she was manipulative as hell. 

Nick had four siblings, and he could do basic math, and right then he discovered that he could hurt in rather unexpected ways. 

She ran her fingers so gently along his jawline, petting him. “I was always very close with Anna when you and I were dating. Apparently no one told her why you broke off the engagement and just vanished. She was very... comforting when I really started to miss you.”

“You  _ didn’t _ .”

“We never got past second base, but it sure was fun until Michael broke it up. He’s so protective of you, even after all you did to him.”

“You’re…” Nick was at a loss for words, which was an unfamiliar place to find himself. “You’re an awful person, Lil.”

“Awful? Hardly.” She played with the loose buttons of his shirt. “It’s your fault, Nick. You left. You left me here missing you. Craving you. What other choice did I have but to look for a replacement?”

“You could, I don’t know, not fuck my brother and sister?”

“Or your Dad?”

That actually made Nick take a step back. Horrified.

“I didn’t actually.” She laughed, crossing her legs and smoothing her dress down like there was nothing at all strange about any of this. “Not for lack of trying, which is oddly how I ended up with Fergus. Your dad passing me off to his right hand man to get rid of me, which went  _ fantastically _ as you can see,” she held up her left hand, flashing her wedding ring just in case it had somehow been missed. “And well, his bank account isn’t quite as pretty as your family’s, but it’s a close enough second when a girl is looking for that kind of security.”

Nick felt more hurt than angry, and that was probably the worst part of it.

“Castiel is the other one I haven’t been able to snag.” She could read Nick as easily as Michael could, seeming to take such quiet pleasure in picking him apart. “Adorable little weirdo that he is, every time I’ve ever gotten close he starts to pray in Latin and holds his fingers up in a cross like I’m some kind of vampire. But, I found out tonight that he’s incredibly gay, so I guess I don’t have to let it hurt my self confidence.” 

With a harsh breath, Nick started to fix his clothes, little tiny steps to try and put himself back together. “It’s nice that you haven’t changed a bit, Lil. Someone tells you ‘no’ and you instantly get vicious.”

“You think this is  _ vicious _ ?” She made an irritated noise, slipping off the counter and turning to the mirror over the sink to fix her hair. “I come here, telling you how much I’ve missed you, practically throw myself at you, and you can’t even give me the benefit of a quicky. You know how embarrassing it is for a woman like me to get shot down?”

“You’ll get over it.”

“You’re the one being mean here tonight, Nicky.” 

“Don’t. Don’t even. You don’t get to play the victim just because someone told you ‘no’ for once. I didn’t come back here for you. I’m not here tonight for you. And you didn’t come here tonight specifically hoping for a quicky. You just saw me and thought it would be fun to maybe have a little roll in the hay like we used to.”

“Of course I’m not here for you, Nick.” She turned to him, placing a hand to her chest, her features softening in a very believable mask of embarrassment and pain. “A delicate little thing like me, cornered by the man who broke my heart and left me stranded at the altar a decade ago. I was just as shocked as anyone to see you here tonight. And then you offered to walk me to get my coat and-and I suddenly find myself cornered by this big brute of a man, I-I didn’t know what to do.” 

“Oh, fuck off.” 

She raised one perfect eyebrow, dropping the mask, obviously not anticipating that over the years Nick might have grown a spine. To be fair, he was just as surprised. Just like he was stunned at how much he still cared about her―because after all, if he hated her half as much as he’d convinced himself of, then she wouldn’t be able to hurt him so easily. 

But she had his number. 

She always had, since the day they’d met. 

“Don’t you raise your voice at me, Nicholas Novak. Don’t you dare.” 

Guilt rose up suddenly and it was the worst. “Look, I… I’m going to go back out there, back to my date,” Christ, but Sam had to be wondering where he’d gone off to by now, and the idea of explaining to the kid that he’d gotten completely bowled over by his ex was a rather daunting thought. “ And then, Lil, I’m going to forget that I ever ran into you tonight. And you, you’re going to go get your coat and go back to whatever corner of hell you crawled out of, and if you come up to me the next time I’m out there visiting the states I’m going to pretend I have no idea who you are.”

She looked at him, at all his false bravado, and she laughed. 

She was beautiful when she laughed. 

Nick didn’t know if he hated himself or her more right then. 

“Big words for the man who was tripping over his own tongue when he first saw me tonight.” Walking up to him without an ounce or fear or shame, she began buttoning back up his shirt. 

Quickly, not at all trusting her, Nick caught her hands. But the woman of his dreams (and nightmares) only smiled with a soft breathy chuckle and continued buttoning like this was one of their old mornings after and she was merely helping him get ready for work.

“I know you’re a one woman kind of man, that was always one of the more charming things about you.” She got the last button, carefully smoothing the collar of his shirt, so meticulous. “But really, I see you there with those eyes as blue as they ever were and that beard, looking like some kind of painting of a saint, and how am I not supposed to get all hot and bothered remembering how it used to be?” She carefully started to retie his tie, like this was all the most natural thing in the world. “Remember how you used to come home and pick me up like I was a doll? I always felt so delicate and safe in your arms.”

“Are you sure that was me and not my brother, or my sister, or my other brother?” Gabriel hadn’t been discluded from Lilith’s runing tally of Novaks she’d bedded, and the insinuation had certainly been there. Which meant that Nick owed his younger brother a punch in the throat before he hopped a plane tomorrow. “Or one of the many, many other lovers you’ve had?”

“You were always my favorite, Nicky. I wasn’t lying about that.” She smoothed his tie and sighed softly, looking up at him. “I would have married you too. Let you take care of me like you wanted. And I would have taken such good care of you.”

“Me and every other sorry son of a bitch that came along,” he clarified for his own benefit, grasping feebly at the ‘angry’ that used to be so easy to find, wrapping it around himself like a protective blanket. 

Lilith laughed again, leaning up to give him such a gentle kiss. “Lots of pretty, sorry, sons of bitches in the world, Nicky, but I never met a single one that could hold a candle to you. No one could ever undo me like you could, Nicky. Laying there in our bed at night―”

“I don’t want to be your favorite!” He cut her off, not wanting to hear whatever nostalgic guilt trip she wanted to take him down. “I don’t wanna’ be your anything anymore.” 

Another soft laugh, like she didn’t believe a word he was saying, and she kissed him again, slower this time. Lingering until he kissed back. 

Just once... then twice... and as easy as that, she was leaning against him, hands flat to his chest as she slowly reclaimed his mouth.

He figured it out though. These weren’t the sentimental sort of kisses of a goodbye. 

These were a deliciously baited trap. 

She was doing her best to lure him right back to where they were a few minutes before, and most importantly she was doing a damn fine job of it. Different tactic than the first attack. Apparently since brute force hadn’t worked she’d switched to gentleling him. Touching him so softly. So sweetly. 

It was so much easier to pull away this time. “I said no.”

“You keep saying it, but you’re not backing it up, Nicky.” She was close. Standing so damn close to him. Their bodies lined up far too well. She pressed her hips into his, proving some kind of point by the way that the friction between them was a little too obvious.

“Stop.”

She purred that laugh of hers, lacing her fingers behind his neck.

“Look, I’ve always been proud of the fact that I’ve never hit a woman,” hands on her shoulders, Nick took a firm step back. “I am very willing to be proud of something else tonight, Lil.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“You really want to test me?”

She narrowed her eyes. “You. Wouldn’t.”

“I said No and I meant No.” He bit off each word, finding it easier each time. “Did you see that beautiful boy I came here with? That’s who I’m going home with. That’s who I’m kissing goodnight tonight. That’s who I’m waking up next to tomorrow. Him. Not you.” And then Nick heard himself say something he hadn’t expected, “I love him,” and he’d tried the words out in his head a few times tonight, getting a feel for them, trying to figure out if they were just a terrible idea that Michael had put in his head. But hearing them outloud? Well, frankly he was sort of screwed. “If you know me at all, Lil. If you ever fuckin’ knew anything about me, you’d know that that’s enough.” 

She looked at him strangely, seeming just as surprised as him by the confession.

Nick knew he couldn’t talk his way out of this, not if the last few minutes were any indication. So he took her stunned silence to push her onto the one the room’s recliners before turning and practically running from the room. 

It was cowardly. But if he’d stayed, even for a few minutes more, one of two things would have happened and neither of them would have been good. Neither of them would have been decisions he could have lived with in the morning. 

Before he could make it back to the relative safety of the ballroom someone caught his arm. Turning, one hand raised, Nick was very ready to make a point even if it would fly in the face of how he was raised. It wasn’t Lilith behind him though.

It was Dean.

“O-ho, hey there.” Dean let go, eyes a little wide as he took a cautious step back. “Chill out, man. Been looking all over for you.”

Nick took a shaking breath, finding a practice perfect smile. “Well, you found me. Congrats. You want a gold star?”

“Sam’s all freaking out because he says you’ve got this thing with crowds and you wouldn’t just fuck off somewhere.” Dean pulled the handkerchief from the pocket of his tux jacket and handed it over to Nick. “And uh, you’ve got lipstick on your…” he pointed to his own mouth and then neck.

Swearing under his breath, Nick did his best to clean himself up, frustrated as Dean took the little scrap of silk from him and pointedly did the job that needed to be done. His helping hand was far from gentle. 

“You look like shit, man,” was the only other thing that Dean had to say about it. The lightly stained handkerchief got stuffed back into his pocket. “Come on, let’s go give you back to Sam before he has a aneurysm.” 

Nick followed Dean, trailing after him obediently. It was mindless and easy and that was important because the further he got from the room where he’d left Lilith the more the panic started to set in. 

What had just happened?

What the hell had just happened?

He’d taken one look at that woman and come right the fuck apart. All those old feelings falling over him like an avalanche. Once upon a time he’d thought he loved her. Once upon a time he’d known that he hated her. And it killed something inside of him to not know for certain what he would have done tonight if she’d apologised and asked him to take her back. If tonight she’d said ‘I love you, Nicky’ instead of all the other things she chosen to say.

It was cold. 

The air was cold against his cheeks, and when he looked around the ballroom he was startled to see in its place the exterior of high rise office buildings, to see cars passing noisily to his left, to have the salt on the icy sidewalks crunching under his shoes. A stunning wave of nausea rolled through him, crawling up from somewhere deep and terrible and he was oh so grateful for the fact that he hadn’t eaten in hours. 

The texture of the building under his hand was rough where he caught himself just as he knees gave out.

“Hey,” Sam seemed to materialize beside him like a phantom. The kid sounded worried as a very careful hand was smoothed over Nick’s back. “You’re ok.”

“I-I need to go home.”

“We’re headed back to your place right now.”

“I can still smell her. She’s on my clothes.”

Sam remained very careful, his hand moving in slow circles.

The night air burned his lungs as he sucked in breathes too quickly. It had been a very, very long time since he’d had a panic attack. He could hazily remember sitting on the bathroom floor, blood on his school uniform, struggling to breathe while Michael sat beside him and failed miserably to help. 

Michael wasn’t here now―and Sam was many things, but he seemed lost. Just as lost as Nick’s big brother had been, not knowing what to do other than simply exist beside the man who was sinking down to the pavement, pressing his face to his knees and gasping the words, “I’m sorry,” between wheezing breaths that could hardly pass through his tight throat.

Nick didn’t know what he was sorry for. 

Everything?

Just everything. 

There were probably better places to have a small existential crisis. At least warmer places, with less foot traffic made of happily drunk strangers winding their own ways home. 

By the time his head started to clear Nick was cold enough that he couldn’t feel his fingers or toes. On the pavement beside him sat a wide eyed Sam, like a loyal dog, his eyes so very dark with worry.

“Well,” Nick hated how hard it was to make a joke when he sounded this exhausted, when he felt this defeated, “that was fun… You about ready to head home,  _ mon chou _ ?”

Sam had an arm around Nick’s shoulders, half of a hug, and it was anyone’s guess how long it had been there. The kid laughed in an almost horrified kind of way. “Christ, Nick. Are you ok? I was about ready to call your brother.”

“ ‘m fan-fuckin-tastic.”

“No. You’re really not this time.”

Nick closed his eyes, listening to the traffic that still moved steadily on even this time of night. His body ached in that specific way that only came after a good and proper break down. He was so tired. So damn tired. 

“Hey,” the younger man lowered his voice to the gentle sort of way you talk to a drunk, or a man on a ledge. “I’m right here, Nick. I don’t know what you need me to do, but I’m right here.”

It was an awful big promise made of very few words.

Luckily in that moment, there was only one thing that Nick wanted, “Can we  _ please _ go home? It’s really cold out here,” and it was a very easy request, one that Sam didn’t need to hear a second time.

Sam was helping him to his feet and doing everything short of basically carrying Nick back to the apartment. As soon as they passed the front door Nick started to pull off his disgusting clothes. He needed away from the stink of that expensive perfume that still clung to him. Jacket, tie, and shirt were all dropped to the floor and shoes were kicked off before he closed the bathroom door behind him.

The shower ran as hot as he could make it, until his skin was pink and the shaking from the cold stopped, and then Nick just stood there beneath the stream of water and did his best not to think. He didn’t want to think. There were no good thoughts left in him right then, just a chaotic mishmash of regret and self loathing. He was stupid and weak and he’d rather not dwell too deeply on those sorts of unhelpful facts.

“Hey,” Sam’s voice was far too close and Nick jumped. 

Looking over he could make out the distorted outline of his friend through the fogged shower door. 

“Knocking before coming in?” Nick suggested uncomfortably, because after all naked and sad was about as vulnerable as anyone could get. 

“Jus’ brining you clean clothes,” the kid explained in no way that sounded like an apology. “Feeling any better?”

“Yeah. A bit.” Through the steam Nick could see the Sam shaped blob set something on the counter, clothes most likely. Something else was set down too, something small that sounded like glass against the marble countertop. Wiping water from his face, Nick slid the door open just enough to peek out and see a slightly overfilled glass of red wine.

If the stunning revelation that Nick was sort of in love with this boy hadn’t already slammed him earlier, now would have been an equally opportune time.

Dripping hot water, he reached out of the shower and took the glass, pulling it back in with him and closing the door. The whole while overtly aware that Sam was watching him.

“That was, um, sort of meant to be an  _ after _ shower treat.”

“Do not tell me how to live my life.” Drinking chilled wine while standing in a hot shower made up for a world of bad. “You jus’ gonna’ stand out there judging?”

“As opposed to?” 

For the first time since midnight Nick felt himself smiling. 

“I mean,” Sam’s offer came slow with just a hint of a laugh, “I could always get in there with you... wash your back...”

Slowly, Nick slid the shower door back open enough to peer out at his friend.

Sam was still half in his rented tux, black pants and partially buttoned white shirt, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. A hopeful, half joking smile making him look all kinds of dimpled and boyish and sweet.

Frankly, he had no right.

Just as slowly as he’d opened it, Nick closed the shower door and a little too easily finished off the last of his wine. The empty glass got set down beside the shampoo bottles and he turned off the shower. And he’d like to get dressed in something soft and comfortable and see if there was more wine where that first glass had come from. Only there was a bit of a barrier.

A Sam shaped barrier out there on the other side of that foggy glass.

“Hey, you mind maybe… turning around or something so I can get dressed?” Despite the little voice in him that pointed out rather bluntly how getting shy about being naked was a little useless at this point. That particular cat had been out of the bag for a while now. 

Something like a laugh came from the other man, followed by a soft, “Yeah. Sorry.”

He waited and watched through the steam as Sam turned around, putting his back to the shower and giving the illusion of privacy. Which was not at all what Nick had actually wanted, though he supposed he should have been more specific in his request and couldn’t be mad at the kid following directions. 

Drying off, making a mental note that when he got back to France he owed himself some soft new bath towels, Nick dressed in the clothes picked out for him. Soft flannel pajama pants and a tattered and faded sweatshirt with the logo of the Uni that he taught at. Same sleeping clothes he’d worn every night that they’d been in South Dakota. Sentiment told him that Sam had been paying attention, but he also knew the he really hadn’t packed anything else to sleep in when he’d left home weeks ago. Still, it was the thought that counted. Much like the wine.

“So, these panic attacks are a regular thing with you?” Sam asked, not in a teasing way, in a worried way.

Pulling his sweatshirt over his head Nick thought he saw the other man watching him over a shoulder. “No. No, they’re just… something that happened when I was a young teen. I grew out of them for the most part.” The sleeves of his sweater got pushed up for all of five seconds before the self consciousness took over and he pulled them back down. 

“Except for crowds and needles?” Sam was definitely watching him, not exactly subtle glances in the mirror and over his shoulder.

“Not needles. Don’t give a fuck about needles.” There was no way he would have been able to get as many tattoos as he had if his fear was specifically about needles.

“Shots then? Injections.” The kid clarified, half turning around now that everyone was dressed again. 

“Right,” Nick had managed to forget about Castiel’s impromptu emergency room and his spiteful two injections a couple weeks back. “I’ve really put my best foot forward with you, haven’t I?”

With dimples on display, Sam ducked his head, “If it helps, I’m afraid of clowns.”

“... clowns?”

“Fucking terrified of them.” 

Nick understood what this was. Just like the night that they’d shared old scars, this was bearing a weak spot, sharing a horror story so that they could stay on even footing. 

Patting his friend on the chest, Nick slid past and out of the very warm and stuffy bathroom. The air in the rest of the apartment felt cooler in comparison, and it wasn’t wholly bad. It helped to clear his head and find some of the focus he’d been lacking. 

Focus enough to go find where Sam had left the rest of the wine. He hadn’t had much at all to drink tonight, and he really, really felt like he needed to make that oversight up to himself. Sinking down onto the couch, pulling his knees up underneath him, Nick took a long drink straight from the bottle and ignored the look from his friend. 

With a tight sigh, Sam sat his gangly ass self down on the coffee table in front of Nick, close enough that their knees brushed. “Can we talk?” 

“ _ Oui _ ,” nothing good ever came from talking, but it was after one in the morning and Nick was too damn tired to try and keep all those strong walls of his in place. 

“I… I’m so sorry for leaving you alone tonight.” The kid’s smile sat tight with regret. “You told me you didn’t want to go, and you told me that you wanted to go home, and I made you stay.”

For the record, that was not at all where he’d expected this to go. 

“ _ Mon chou,  _ no.” He let out a tight breath and offered over the bottle. “My hatred of crowds, of people, it… it makes my skin itch. It makes me jumpy. My palms get sweaty if I don’t know where the exits are. It’s like this awful cousin to claustrophobia but it… it doesn’t give me panic attacks. All of that, it- it wasn’t your fault in the slightest.”

Sam took the bottle, but he didn’t drink any. He just set it down far out of Nick’s grasp and looked rather pointedly at the man on the couch. Disbelief so clean and easy to read.

“I ran into Lilith.” Quick like a bandaid, and Nick had always thought it best to own his mistakes, and tonight sure had been one for the records. “She talked me into walking her out to get her coat. She… we ended up fucking around in the mother’s lounge before I realised I’d lost my damn mind. She… she said some things I hadn’t been expecting to hear. I did some things I didn’t think that I’d ever do. Apparently it was just a bit more than I’d been ready to deal with tonight.”

Pursing his lips into this thin line, Sam nodded slowly. He also leaned to the side and picked back up the wine bottle, taking a slow drink. 

Nick didn’t understand the look he was being given beyond the massive disappointment―which was basically what he already felt for himself, so it’s not like it was a new feeling to be laid out on the table. 

Holding a hand out to get his drink back, Nick realised it wasn’t going to happen. Sam rather stubbornly keeping the bottle for himself, safely out of reach. And that was probably a good idea, but it didn’t mean that he had to like it.

Resting elbows on his knees, Nick almost wished he’d come home alone. Then it could just be him and a strong drink and all those regrets. “I had this… this idea in my head I guess,” he pressed his palms together, looking very seriously down at his thumbs. “This… notion that I’d come back here one day, and I’d see her and I’d say all the right things. And she’d apologise. She’d tell me that she loved me. That she’d always loved me. That she’d screwed up. That Michael was a lousy screw. That she’d waited all this time hoping that I’d maybe come back to her.” 

Risking a glance up, he saw the same guarded expression on his friend and Nick hated it. He lowered his face into his hands, thumbs hooking under his jaw and forefingers pressing into the spot between his closed eyes. “I think… I think part of me was waiting for her. Some part of me decided she was worth waiting for… God, it’s been years. Years! Ten fucking years I’ve wasted while the stupid part of me, which is apparently most of me, was waiting to come back home and pick up where we left off. I’m a goddamned idiot.” 

“Luci.” 

Behind Nick’s closed eyes he was very aware of the way that Sam had moved from the coffee table to sit beside him on the couch. 

“Most of that was in French,” the kid explained so gently. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“It’s…” Nick wondered why his tongue felt so slow. “It’s not important I guess,” he said carefully, making very sure that the words were all in English, wondering when he’d switched in the first place. 

The arm that fell around Nick’s shoulders was just as warm and heavy as every other time tonight that the kid had put it there. The comfort was as welcome as it was painful. Sam also kissed the top of his head, which was a more recent development. One that called up all sorts of ghosts from Nick’s childhood. Of his protective older brother. Of  _ being  _ a protective older brother. Of wanting desperately to help but not knowing how. 

“I…I fell in love with someone I had no business falling in love with.” He tried to sum up all the things that he’d said wrong before, picking each word slowly and carefully. Making sure that they would be understood despite the fact that he still spoke into his hands, muffling everything. “It’s like falling in love with a lightning storm. Beautiful and terrible and it can’t ever love you back.”

The heater turned on, a soft hush of warm air making the only noise in the space between those long thoughts.

“Do… do you still love her?”

It was an honest question and Nick gave it the benefit of thinking it through before answering. “For a few seconds I thought that I might.”

Sam made a soft sound in response, but it didn’t seem to mean anything.

Like he’d finally talked himself in enough circles to make sense of it all, Nick realised, “It was the same way I love bologna.”

“You know,” Sam murmured so gently against his temple. “I watched you drink, and I’d swear you didn’t have that much.” 

Nick tried to laugh but it came out all wrong. Smothered and hurt and not the noise he’d meant to make. Shaking, he spread his fingers enough to look at the man beside him. “When I was a kid I loved bologna, but then I tried it again for the first time in years... It still tasted like it used to except it was suddenly awful... Lil was like that. The same taste, just like I remember, but awful.”

The kid seemed to understand. He nodded, his face shifting where it lay against the crown of Nick’s head. They stayed sitting like that for a weird length of time, as if they’d both fallen asleep or forgotten the other one was there.

The heater switched back off, a sputter of sound before the room fell dead silent aside from their mixed breaths.

Sam’s uneven sigh broke the spell. “You think that, you know… set in your ways like you are that maybe one day things might change and you might be interested in something more mundane than lightning storms or bologna?”

A strange question, and Nick dug deep inside for an answer. 

“I,” even if it was going to sound awful it was very true, “I think more than anything I’m much better suited for watching lightning storms. I like my safe distance. I like being alone and knowing that there’s nothing I can screw up. No one other than myself to disappoint.” 

With a frustrated noise breathed hotly into Nick’s hair, with his hand making a tight and angry fist into the older man’s sweater, Sam demanded rather bluntly, “Have you ever, even once in your life, let yourself feel like you deserve something good?”

Nick shouldn’t have to think so long or hard for an answer to this one. “Every Friday after class I take myself out for an ice cream.”

“Is… this a metaphor like the bologna?”

“No. It’s mint and chip.” Nick lowered his hands so he could look at and fully appreciate the frustrated and pained look on his friend’s face.

“You’re the worst,” Sam pointed out. “The actual worst.” The hand not holding Nick’s shoulder coming up to cup the older man’s jaw so Sam could pull him in and firmly kiss his cheek. 

“I know.” Laughing like an admission of guilt, Nick slid and hand over Sam’s wrist, holding on, leaning into him and just being close. Taking what comfort was offered. Taking the lopsided hug because it was weird and perfect. 

Sam was weird and perfect. 

Sam was kissing his cheek a second time, but not in the same place. Not in the same way. The first kiss had been high on Nick’s cheekbone, up near the corner of his eye. The second one brushed the edge of his mouth, right where his smile had sat. 

Confused more than anything else, Nick looked up at his friend.

There wasn’t time to really form any strong feelings on how very close the young man suddenly was. Or the way that his eyes didn’t seem to be the same color now as they’d been earlier in the night, more brown than green, more green than brown. There wasn’t time enough for Nick to come up with any kind of good anything before Sam kissed him again. 

Not the kind of gentle kiss you give a friend who was having a god awful day. This one was more a questioning brush of lips, and when the answer wasn’t a clear no, Sam pulled Nick in the rest of the way and deepened the kiss into something reminiscent of the one they’d shared at midnight. 

As distractions from everything else went, it was a rather good one, and Nick didn’t bother to dwell too deeply on the sudden shift between them. He just kissed back, for a few beautiful seconds at least. No matter how warm and welcoming Sam’s mouth was, it wasn’t enough to clear up any of tonight, though. The last few hours still a total mess. 

He pulled back, taking a measured, shaking breath. Enjoying, but hating the distracting way that Sam’s thumb was running over his lower lip. Nick made himself open his eyes and focus as objectively as he could on the stunning young man who still had at least one arm mostly around him. “Ok, um... w-what is this?”

Sam’s brow drew low, the odd little smile he’d had curling downward as he looked at Nick with nothing short of frustration. “Well, it’s obviously a young man making a complete ass of himself. I’d have thought you of all people would be able to recognise it, Luci. Like looking in a mirror.”

A startled chuckle crept out of Nick before he could catch it. 

But then Sam was pulling away, taking all that warmth and wonder with him, like the sun passing behind a cloud. 

“No.” Nick scrambled, shamefully, catching both Sam’s arms and stopping the retreat. “I just… I just don’t―this isn’t the sort of thing that we should do when we’re drunk.”

Sam seemed to understand, nodding slowly, looking down at the couch and the way they both had their legs tucked up here with them. Then he frowned again and turned his irritated gaze back to Nick. “I’m not drunk.”

Oh.

Like a kid in a confessional, Nick said in a halting sort of way, “I’m not either.”

They’d met only a few weeks ago, and despite some intensely close quarters at times and some uncomfortably intimate conversations, it wasn’t really enough time to be experts on eachother. Which meant that he was honestly surprised at Sam’s directness when the kid simply took hold of Nick’s hips with those very strong hands of his and easily picked Nick up. Pulling him over with not nearly enough effort, settling the slightly stunned man across his lap, before rather pointedly picking up where they’d left off. Kissing like he was trying to make up for lost time. 

Objectively, Sam was an idiot to give Nick the higher ground. It had been years since anyone had manhandled Nick. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d sat in anyone’s lap, and he’d certainly never in his life been picked up. He had no idea what to do with all this, with the fact that his higher vantage point meant that he ultimately had most of the control over this situation. Those heavy hands against his hips really more for show than any kind of real threat or restraint. He was not a man who had ever done well with power. 

His hands started on Sam’s chest, sort of worried about balance and his own offset center of gravity now that he was suddenly perched in a place he’d never expected to be. But the kisses that had started like a frustrated demand had turned to something slow and delicious and Nick’s arms found their way around his friend’s shoulders, tangling one hand in Sam’s hair while he tried to find the best angle for their mouths to meet. 

Not quite able to help himself, Nick pulled back every few kisses, just so he could look at Sam. Fleeting glances there were met each time with a slightly different sentiment. The younger man sometimes smiling, or frowning in confusion, or just laughing as they reached the possible twentieth time that Nick felt a need to check in on him. 

One of Sam’s hands had abandoned that captive grip on the older man’s hip in favor of cradling the side of his neck. “Are… are you making sure I’m still here, Nick?”

That was one way to put it and Nick laughed warmly with only a hint of uncertainty bleeding in around the edges. “No?”

“You just look a little surprised to see me each time.” Sam took the opportunity to kiss both of Nick’s cheeks, nuzzling their faces together ever so slightly in a very strange but very pleasing sort of way. 

Letting out a very content sigh, Nick felt lighter than he had in hours, those unpleasant parts of tonight settling under a haze of unimportance. “I’m… I’m sort of waiting for that straight boy panic to set in.”

Sam leaned back, far enough to give Nick one of those disapproving, annoyed looks that he did so very well. “The  _ what _ ?”

“The…” Nick sighed, pressing his forehead into Sam’s shoulder, hiding. Loving the smell of the kid, and the way he radiated heat, and just how very solid and wonderful he felt. “I went to an all boys school,  _ mon chou _ . I’ve kissed more than my fair share of curious, straight boys. It never goes very far.”

“Now the thing here is, I know that you went to college. They gave you a degree and actually let you teach other people,” Sam’s other hand leaving Nick’s hip so that he could squeeze Nick in a almost too tight hug. “So you can’t be this stupid.”

“Hey,” Nick straightened, sitting up enough to look at the man under him, with his overly kissed lips and his eyes that were too dark. “I’m speaking from experience here―”

“And I’m speaking as the man who’s been trying to figure out how to kiss you since before Christmas. Who more than once almost threw you down on a fold out couch and started undressing you. I’m not over here thinking ‘maybe kissing a boy would be fun, you know, as long as it doesn’t get  _ too gay _ ’, I’m thinking you’ve obviously had a rough night, all things considered, and maybe I’m moving a little too fast. That I don’t want to take advantage of you.”

That there was another first for Nick tonight. Sure he’d been taken advantage of many times, he was just positive that no one ever in the history of ever had given it a second thought beforehand.

“There are times,” He said slowly, watching his friend with a very odd feeling tight in his chest, “I have my doubts as to whether or not you’re even real. You know that?” 

Sam laughed with a confused sort of happy sound. 

As far as he could figure, Nick had two options, and as he spoke he was fairly certain that he’d picked the worse one. “I think it’s a little late, but probably good to tell you that I have an addiction problem.”

Sam didn’t frown so much as the confused smile faded quietly, to be replaced with a quiet tension of worry and concern. 

“I was hooked on vicodin for almost five years, back when I was a kid still living with my folks.” Nick kept his story short, moving from the first part to the second quick enough that it couldn’t hurt him. “Getting clean was a bitch, and I really found that gambling helped as a distraction.”

“Are you… are you trying to scare me off here, Nick?” 

“No. I,” it was stupid to tell Sam now. He should have told him weeks ago, but he could very clearly see the window of opportunity closing. “I made a bet with my brother about you. And I shouldn’t have, but I mean, even knowing I was going to lose I couldn’t just tell him no.”

Sam sort of laughed, this little puff of sound and he shook his head. “You already told me about this, man, and I already got mad at you for it and moved on.” 

“I didn’t exactly … I left out parts. I was explaining it to your brother and he didn’t need to know all the details.”

The arms around Nick loosened and Sam leaned back as much as the couch would allow, apprehension making the edges of his eyes hard. 

Nick really wished that it didn’t feel like a victory. He had no idea why he was testing the stability of this new found something to see if he’d be able to break it. 

“It started with Gabe betting that I’d never find anyone willing to go out with a salty son of a bitch like myself, but I’ve never known when to shut up and he kept poking at me and raising the stakes, and by the end we were betting whether or not I could get you to fall in love with me by New Years.”

Sam’s eyebrows had crept upwards in surprise and he seemed too stunned to respond.

“And in the first five minutes after meeting you I gave up and figured lying to my brother was the only option. It’s not like I could just tell him that you were too far out of my league and just hand over the money because he’d won. Gabe would never let me live it down… so as far as he’s concerned I paid you for your company and you’re quite enamored with me for it, and I’m winning our bet, and I’m sorry, Sam.” 

The young man sat there quietly under Nick, watching him with an odd anticipation, finally asking, “Is that all?”

“What do you mean ‘is that all’? Yes. That’s it.”

Sam snorted softly, leaning in to kiss the tip of Nick’s nose. “Ok.”

“Ok?” Nick felt utterly lost, “What do you mean ok?”

“I mean you talked it up like you were about to tell me that you planned to kill me once this all said and done. And instead you’re telling me what I already know. That you’re a bad gambler, and a complete ass, and … and just my favorite mess of a human being.”

It was such an utterly strange compliment, that for a moment Nick forgot how Sam wasn’t the first person to tell him those words tonight. It was actually worse, not better, to hear it from his friend.

“I…” A crippling sort of feeling knocking the wind out of him. “Wow. Today kind of sucks.”

“Alright, not the reaction I was expecting.”

Nick passed a hand over his eyes, wondering if the other man would notice how he’d started to shake. He didn’t want to be anyone’s ‘favorite’. Favorite was a consolation prize. It was a ‘good job’ and ‘we sure had fun here, didn’t we’. It was someone telling him how they loved how much he loved them, but that’s as deep as those feelings ever went.

He needed a distraction. Even a bad distraction, and his brain quickly supplied him with one ringing suggestion of a way to clear his mind. “Sam, can we, um, can we go back to the part without the talking?”

A worried little pinch formed between the kid’s eyebrows.

“The-the part with the kissing. Can we go back to the kissing, even if it’s for the wrong reasons?”

Sitting a little more tense than before, Sam seemed very reluctant to answer with a soft and hesitant, “What are the  _ wrong _ reasons to kiss someone, Luce?”

“Just yes or no?” Nick was running out of words, that ache in his chest growing, and he was begging for a distraction from it before that awful feeling ate him up entirely.

“Nick,” started Sam, more like a warning than a question. 

“Nope.” his breath started to stick in his throat and Nick had no patience to wait longer for an answer. “No. It’s fine. _Mais,_ _je ne peux pas_...” Sliding from the other man’s lap, Nick went for the bottle of wine that had been long abandoned on the coffee table. Not as good as kissing, but he knew from experience it would help clear his head. Talking to himself in a soothing sort of voice, “I just need less room to think, or I’m going to end up― _hngg_ ,” the rather undignified noise gasped out of him as his friend roughly pulled him back onto the couch, pinning him in place, crossing Nick’s arms over his own chest and holding him down.

Sam kissed him with none of the gentleness from before. It was all sorts of beautiful. It was also kind of awful. Most importantly, it was distracting as hell.

Kissing back, borderline desperate, Nick let himself get lost. After only the smallest bit of struggling he got his arms free, wrapping them around the other man’s shoulders, holding on to Sam like he was afraid of losing him. 

Before too long though, the aggression started to wan and for some bizarre reason Sam had started to take these little breaths between kisses, pulling back enough to look down at Nick, touching his cheek or lips.

“Are,” Nick swallowed a little hard, having a hard time focusing (which had been the goal, so there were no complaints), “are you checking to make sure I’m still here?” He asked Sam’s earlier question back at him, trailing after the fingers touching his lip, trying to kiss them. 

“No. I’m just,” Sam chuckled, keeping his fingers well within kissing distance to both of their enjoyment. “I’m,  _ hmm _ , waiting for you to start being awful to yourself again. It seems to be on a ten minute loop tonight, so any second now…”

“You’re lucky I like you as much as I do. Otherwise, if I rolled us right now so I could be on top, you’d fall right off the couch and It might ruin the moment.”

“Do,” with a rough hook of a grin, Sam ducked his head, not making eye contact as he asked, “do you  _ want  _ to be on top? Because I was sort of planning for the other way around, but I wasn’t set on it if you had other ideas.”

Oddly enough, Nick hadn’t. It never seemed fair to let his imagination go any further than some light petting, and he’d done his best to keep everything well in check and not torture himself. Sam ruined all that though and Nick’s imagination was suddenly lit up with many interesting possibilities. 

Making a noise that hopefully wasn’t too needy, Nick hooked on leg over his friend’s hip, letting their bodies settle together in ways that were less than subtle. “However you want,  _ mon chou _ .”

“You, um… do you still have that note Cas gave you with the diagrams?”

Nick laughed, startled, head falling back. 

“I know the stitches are out, but I wouldn’t want to get too rough with you.”

“Please. Feel free to be as rough as you like.”

Sam kissed him gently, more nuzzle than anything else. “But your little brother scares me.”

Nick felt warm. This flickering kind of heat licking at his insides, making his chest tight in a good way for the first time tonight. Warm, not because Sam was like a furnace, but just because Sam was like Sam. “Then feel free to be as  _ gentle _ as you like,” he whispered against his friend’s mouth. “Just be with me.”

It was a simple enough request, one that Sam answered without words, but very clearly all the same.

  
  
  
  
  
  



	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is... half of a chapter, maybe only a third, but hey, where I am it's still Christmas, which means that you all need a present. That's how this works. So, even though the majority of you live in a timezone ahead of me (yay Calilfornia), and may be already onto December 26th, or even further than that, have a present of some fluff. Gross fluff.   
> You're welcome :3
> 
> and a tiny life update if you wanted one:  
> I sort of fell off the map for a bit there. Sorry. And for those of you who came to check in on my in my long absence, thank you <3 there's something weirdly comforting to know that if I vanished there would be some nice strangers on the internet who would notice and miss me.  
> Long story short, I had lots of end of the term stuff to do with my little students, and then my doctor put me on some swell beta blockers which have put me in a sort of walking coma at this point and have yet to build up in my system enough to do what they were prescribed to do (namely deal with the migraines, hand tremors, and rabbiting pulse), so I've been an achy, shaky, sleepy hot mess for the past few weeks. It's great.

Sam had been thirteen years old the first time he’d looked at a girl and felt his body respond before his thoughts could catch up. And he’d been today years old the first time he’d had that same visceral reaction to another man. 

When he’d left for the party tonight with his friend there’d been no plan in his mind for anything to happen other than making sure that Nick kept up his promise to his younger brother by actually going to the thing. But suddenly there had been the option to kiss Nick, and Sam had heard himself hungrily agreeing before his mind could catch up.

Then the plan for the night had become to kiss his friend because as far as Sam could tell this was an opportunity that would only come along once. Even if he ignored how skittish Nick could be, and how often the older man liked to point out how straight Sam was and how much the two of them weren’t actually dating, Sam knew himself well enough to realise that he’d only have the courage to do this one time. No one liked to get shot down, and if it had to happen, then only signing up to do it once seemed like the kindest sort of self torture.  

He hadn’t expected his friend to kiss back like he did, and in Sam’s mind a new plan had formed. A plan to kiss his friend again, even if optimism had him reading too far into things, even if the only excuse he might be able to come up with was a ‘goodbye’. 

Easier than he’d expected, a second kiss had been found there on the couch, and immediately Sam’s jumbled thoughts offered to him that if kissing like this was an option, then touching might be too. 

So he came up with a new plan.

As it turned out, touching was very much allowed. First on the couch, and then in the bedroom. Over clothes, then under clothes, then without clothes, and then without anything resembling well formed sentences. Laughing and kissing, and in the most encouraging sorts of ways Nick tended to off and on completely forget how to speak English, so Sam was grateful that he’d won the argument over whether they’d keep the lights on or not. The younger man needed to see his friend’s face. He needed some kind of visual confirmation that he was doing this right.

Even if the first time had been mostly clumsy hands and over far too quickly, certainly by the third Sam was fairly sure that he’d figured it out. That they’d figured eachother out. 

There were still some questions rattling around in his mind, but laying there under his friend, Nick’s head heavy on his chest, he realised that whatever questions he had could wait. Being right here was what mattered, figuring out  _ why _ they’d ended up here was the sort of question that could wait for the morning.

It’s not like Sam was stupid, maybe a little slow when it came to certain topics, but not stupid. He knew full well that at least part of how they got here could be blamed on Lilith. Whatever happened between his friend and his ex tonight had done a number on Nick, and the man who seemed to hate himself at a steady six out of ten on a good day, had peaked. 

Sex had probably not been the most responsible or healthy way to work through everything, and Sam almost wished that he’d been a better person, because hindsight was made of doubt. The feeling tried to eat away at him, that worry that he’d pushed when he shouldn’t have, that he’d taken advantage of the way that Nick had been an utter mess. 

But if Sam had pushed, then his friend had most definitely pushed right back and doubt had no place here in bed with them. Laying there tangled in sweaty sheets, with no sound other than their too fast breaths and the hum of the heater. With each shallow gasp that Sam drew Nick’s head rose and fell. 

Tracing over the confusing lines where the other man’s tattoos and scars mixed together, Sam carefully asked, “You still coming back in a month?”

Not looking up, his face mostly hidden against Sam’s ribs, the answer seemed just as overly cautious. “You still want me to?”  

“Nick, if I get a vote in this, then I’d rather you not leave at all.”

“Fake boyfriends don’t get a vote,” he breathed out a laugh that was little more than a sleepy rumble. 

“What about real boyfriends?”

“Don’t have any of those.”

“Oh wow. This is going to come as real bad news for you then,” Sam let his fingers trail up Nick’s neck and along the edge of his jaw. “I don’t really do  _ casual _ sex, so… sorry, but we’re sort of dating now.”

“Well, shit,” the older man laughed, a bit clearer this time as he lifted his face to peer up at his human pillow. “I guess if those are the rules then those are the rules.”

“I know it sucks, but what are ya’ gonna do?”

“ _ Hmm _ ,” murmuring softly to himself, Nick pushed up to a sitting position, and though he hadn’t started the evening’s festivities that way he was notably sporting a vivid collection of blue and purple bruising either in the very identifiable shapes of Sam’s hands, or Sam’s mouth. 

“Oh my god.”

“Nope,” hands on Sam’s chest, the older man gently pushed him back onto the mattress. “You already made worried sounds at the bruises when we got in here.”

“Yeah, but they didn’t look that bad before.” An hour or two ago, when Sam had been pushing Nick’s clothes off, he’d seen the beginning hints of what his rough hands were capable of doing to his friend. What had started off as a faint hand print on one shoulder, and ghostlike finger prints wrapping around Nick’s hips had turned into molted colors spreading from the older man’s throat down to his thighs.  

“I bruise easily.”

“You look like you lost a fight with an octopus.”

“No, I look like I was well and truly fucked by my  _ boyfriend _ .”

That shouldn’t have made Sam feel proud like it did, and he tried to hide that feeling behind a frown of concern. “I, um, I’ll try and be more gentle next time.”

“Don’t you dare.” Nick loomed over Sam suddenly, poking a very deliberate finger into his chest like a threat. “Next time… um, whenever that’s going to be―”

“First thing in the morning,” Sam supplied, catching Nick’s hand and using it as an anchor to drag him down, closer and closer until their lips could meet in a grazing kind of kiss threaded through soft laughter. 

“Oh,” with smothered chuckles between distracted kisses, Nick settled heavily along Sam’s side. He was still holding the younger man’s hand, twisting their fingers into slow knots as he pushed their arms up overhead, into the pillow. “You’ve already got it all planned out?” 

Quite the opposite. “God no. Don’t let the fake confidence fool you, Luci. I’m very badly winging this whole thing.” It was still so strange. If it had been a woman curling over him, naked and grinning and kissing him slowly like savoring a favorite drink, Sam would have had an impossible time stringing two thoughts together. Except this was Nick, and in place of soft curves there were broad shoulders. Surprisingly strong arms. Stubble. It was confusing. Confusing in the best sorts of ways, but confusing nonetheless. 

“As long as you promise not to tell anyone,” Nick bit his own lip, very dangerously close to being cute, “I’ll let you in on a little secret. I don’t have a fuckin’ clue what I’m doing either.”

“Yeah?” 

“But this, um,” his bright gaze drifted down Sam’s body for a moment. Implying a whole lot in that single glance. “This is maybe a good thing?”

“I mean… I’m not mad about it.”

“Regrets?”

“Hell yes.”

Nick’s eyes narrowed dangerously, a sudden tightness in how he held himself. 

It reminded Sam that it was still too early to joke around about this. His friend had already had a rough enough night without any unnecessary teasing piled on top of things. 

“I’m regretting that I didn’t just kiss you when the temptation first hit me. I mean, it would have been damn awkward with Dean in the other room, and you might have hit me, but I wish I hadn’t been such a coward about it.” Sam lived for the way that Nick’s cheeks were darkening and how the man couldn’t keep any kind of eye contact.

“I wouldn’t have hit you too hard,” was Nick’s soft promise as he shifted his weight and cleared his throat in a way that was incredibly, endearingly, uncomfortable. 

“We could have made out on the couch bed,” Sam insisted. “I haven’t made out on that couch since the summer I turned sixteen and Rosemary Anderson from down the street came over to see if Dean and me wanted to go down to the river with her and her older sister.”

“Sam, after the shock wore off and I apologised for hitting you,  _ not too hard _ , we could have done so much more than make out on that lumpy, awful bed.”

“Yeah?”  

“Things that would have ruined sixteen year old Sam.”

He thought that he’d done a fairly good job and keeping a straight face up until that moment, confessing too late to make a difference that he’d been fairly weak for his friend for far too long now. But Sam broke, laughing a little too loud, pulling his arms heavy around the other man and holding him closer than he had in at least one very long half hour. “Things you would have gone to jail for?”

“We both would have. I’m only interested in the fun stuff that’s outlawed in most stated,” the slightly absurd statement came with its own eyebrow wiggle, which was wholly unnecessary. 

“Oh, shut up.” Sam had a sort of feeling like his friend had meant to add something more before getting wholly distracted. The two of them seeming to suddenly remember that kissing was an option. A very nice option. Only,  Nick kept turning his face to the younger man’s shoulder and yawning softly. 

“Am I boring you?” Sam teased, flexing his grip along his friend’s side, mindful of the bruises but also loving the way that Nick squirmed in a nearly ticklish way. 

“No,” another yawn, followed by a beautifully unguarded smile. Nick lazily looped his arms around Sam’s neck and let his head fall back. “I’d be the most ungrateful son of a bitch in creation if I said I was too tired for a fourth round.”

Hating as much as admiring the way his friend always managed to turn his own words against himself, Sam rolled them both to the more clean side of the bed, though at this point ‘clean’ was merely a relative term. “Luci, the sun is going to be up in the next two hours or so. You can be as tired as you want to be.”

Even as Nick settled down against a pillow, tongue playing with the edge of his lip, making his smile uneven when he said, “The day I’m too tired for sex is the day they put me in a casket.”

“We can pace ourselves. We’ve got tomorrow. And the day after that. And the day after that.” Sam pressed the timeline against his friend’s mouth with rather deliberate kisses, short and to the point, kind of in love with how easy it was.

“We don’t. My flight leaves tomorrow afternoon,” Nick whispered, looking away with those pale eyes of his. “We should have gotten an earlier start,  _ mon chou _ .”

“I guess we’ll just have to make up for lost time when you come back out to visit next month.”

Nick closed his eyes, smiling faintly at the plan. Halfway to sleep in an instant, or simply lost in thought, he grew very quiet.

Not wanting to disturb his friend, Sam settle in beside him, finding the edge of the blanket that had fallen off the bed and pulling it over them. Reaching over the nightstand, he fiddled with the light until he got it turned off, plunging them into a warm and comfortable darkness. 

In the quiet closeness, Nick’s breath was suddenly against his cheek, apparently they were going to share a pillow as well as their blankets.

They’d both earned some sleep, and as long as they could do it together, Sam was happy to follow, despite the fact that under any normal kind of circumstances he would have fought to keep his pillow to himself. The closeness tonight was more than welcome.


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello, you lovely people <3  
> An update. And I'm sorry/not sorry for it? I love writing these sorts of chapters, the kinds that my beta reader tells me makes her tear up a bit. I'm always here for the emotional roller coaster, and Gabe. For whatever reason he's one of my favorite characters to write. Which obviously means that I need to do it more :)

Through the past long stretch of years, Nick had grown overly used to waking up alone, and that wasn’t a bad thing. He liked to stretch out, he liked not having to share his blankets, he liked that he could lay in any position that might possibly be comfortable without running into anyone else. 

But something had to be said for the weight of Sam-fucking-Winchester stretched out under him, slow even breaths making his chest rise and fall like clockwork. It was exactly the sort of thing that he wouldn't mind getting used to. Unsteady, Nick pushed himself up onto his elbows, the younger man’s arm around his waist slipping, warm hand falling to the small of his back, and the feeling of it was actually somewhat terrifying. Not the touch, just the terrible way that it made Nick’s chest too tight, and the way that he couldn’t keep himself from smiling. 

This was the worst. 

Despite the fact that he wanted nothing more than to kiss that handsome young man awake, Nick eased himself out of the bed.

It was far from being considered a graceful escape, especially since his bare ass hadn’t even slid fully from the mattress before a clumsy hand was slapping lightly at his forearm, grabbing him before he could get too far. 

“Hey,” Sam whispered like it meant good morning.

“Hey,” Nick whispered back, despite the fact that the two of them were the only ones in the apartment so it’s not like there was a risk of being overheard. 

“Where are you going?”

“Shower.”

“What time is it?”

Squinting to make out the numbers on the bedside clock, Nick relayed that it was nearly ten, carefully pulling his arm free. About five hours of sleep was enough for him to function like a human, but the man beside him didn’t look nearly ready to be continuous just yet. “Go back to sleep.”

“ _ Mmhm _ ,” Sam agreed so easily, nestling down into his pillow, his eyes never even opening during the soft exchange.

Nick found his boxers on the floor and made some poor attempt at partially dressing himself enough that he felt comfortable with the chance that someone might be watching as he started a narrow-eyed search for his glasses. For obvious reasons it was a little difficult to see where they had ended up at. For whatever reason there was this weird need to try and be ‘thoughtful’ to the mostly unconscious man, so rather stubbornly Nick left the light off and the curtains closed. He wasn't doing himself any favors, especially since it looked to be a wasted effort. 

After a little too much time fumbling blindly around, a helpful bit of direction came from back on the bed, “If you’re looking for your glasses they’re over here, old man.”

With eyes still narrowed in an effort to make sense of the dim and slightly out of focus room, Nick looked over to see Sam half sitting up, picking the now rather obvious glasses up from the bedside table and holding them out.

For longer than was polite, Nick stood there looking at the dishevelled mess of a man in his bed. 

A slow hook of a smile tugged at the corner of Sam’s lips. “Your glasses?”

Clearing his throat and feeling like an idiot, he took his glasses with a mumbled, “ _ Merci _ .”

“Is it stupid to―” Sam rubbed a hand over his face and through his hair, looking down at the tangle of blankets that were sort of mostly covering himself, “to ask if I can get a good morning kiss?”

Settling the glasses into place, playing with the bridge over his nose and doing an even worse job hiding a smile as he looked back at the man in his bed. “I mean… it’s definitely not the dumbest question I’ve ever heard.”

“Is that a yes or a no?”

“I’ve got morning breath.”

“Yeah, well, so do I.” Sam reached out to him again, peeking up with only one eye open, his cheeks dimpling with a sleepy grin. 

It was a nice kiss, even if it tasted faintly of last night’s wine. 

“Go back to sleep,” Nick repeated his earlier instruction, despite the fact that Sam was obviously awful at following directions. 

“ _ Mmhm. _ ” Another drowsy grin, and Sam rolled over, wrapping the blanket around himself and settling in. 

It took more strength than Nick though he had to not just crawl back into bed.

He got his shower, scrubbing off the evidence of last night’s fun (at least what he  _ could _ scrub off, the bruising was truly spectacular and he’d proudly wear it for the next week or two), and got dressed. He took the clothes from the bedroom like a thief taking diamonds from a vault, so careful not to disturb Sam’s gentle snoring. 

Making sure that the bedroom door was firmly closed, he went to the kitchen and started making some food, enough for two just in case someone felt like waking up anytime soon.

Without even meaning to, he’d started to sing softly to himself, only realising how stupidly happy he was when he heard keys rattling at the door and self-consciously shut the hell up. 

It wasn’t the bedroom, but the front door, that opened. And it wasn’t Sam’s boy scout smile that greeted Nick. It was Gabriel’s. 

And frankly, it wasn’t as good.  

“The hell do you want?”

“Good morning to you too, sunshine.” Gabe’s wind messed hair was as wet as the shoulders of his heavy jacket, which probably meant that it was storming again. New York winters knew how to keep giving and giving. “Wow, you look… almost  _ happy _ ? Oh, are you making omelettes? Because you know I love me a good omelette.”

Without a word, Nick took out a plate for his brother and went back to the stove.

“So I heard all about your adventures last night.”

Startled, Nick looked over. “Yeah?”

“It’s all anyone was talking about this morning.” His younger brother hopped up onto the counter with enough ease that it was obvious that this wasn’t the first time he’d done it. “I’ll tell you though, I don’t believe it. Not just because you’re my brother, but because I happen to know that you’ve got more class than that.”

It was then that Nick realized that Gabe was probably not talking about him and Sam.

“I mean, not  _ much _ class, let’s be honest here. But―”

“What is everyone saying about me now?”

“That you followed your ex out of the party last night and tried to get a little frisky.” Gabe clicked his tongue, running a hand through his hair and making some sense of it. “Some people are even saying you lost that famous temper of yours when she told you no, but like I said, I don’t believe it and I really don’t think anyone else does either. The devil woman has… a certain  _ reputation _ .”

“That’s just… that’s great.  _ Fantastic _ .” He’d spent less than fifteen minutes alone with the woman and she still somehow managed to conjure up some long-term hell for him to suffer through.

Gabe slid open one of the drawers nearest him, not taking out anything, just sort of fidgeting with the fixture. “I mean, you  _ didn’t _ , right?”

“Course I didn’t.” His happy mood was dwindling rapidly, no comfort to be found at the look of relief that came over his younger brother. “And fuck you for even asking,” he bit off the words, making it clear that he didn’t appreciate the doubt.

“See, I knew you didn’t.” Gabe slid the drawer closed with a soft clatter of silverware. “You’re a mean son of a bitch, but you wouldn’t even say ‘boo’ to a woman, even  _ that _ woman.”

How simple life would have been if Nick could only argue with that. “God, I hate her.”

“We all hate her.”

Nick dumped the finished omelette onto Gabe’s plate, made some very direct eye contact, and pointedly did not ask about the possibility that his little brother might have also ended up in bed with the demon woman. Apparently, most people did at some point. It almost definitely couldn’t have been any time recently, and even if it had been, it was no longer Nick’s problem. 

A small fact that had been unreachable last night but so very easy to remember after some good sleep beside pleasant company. Any and all thoughts involving that woman were ones that he was only too eager to let go of.

“People around here never seem to have anything better to do than talk.” Shaking his head, Nick poured more egg mixture into the hot skillet as he forced himself to return to cooking. “I’ll be glad to head back home tomorrow. Get myself the hell away from this nonsense.”

The sound of that drawer sliding open and closed was the only noise for nearly a minute straight. Gabe had always been an expert at being subtly annoying. 

“Had breakfast at Michael’s…” the younger Novak started almost conversationally, “he had a lot to say too.”

“Good for him.” Nick wasn’t sure what to do with that information, though, he was nearly positive he wasn’t going to be thrilled with what came next.

“He said you might be staying,” Gabe offered, not like a possibility, but like a fact.

“Now why do you think would he go and say a thing like that?”

“Because you’re going to come back to work with Dad. Everyone knows it.”

_ Everyone? _

Nick had no doubt. “Just like everyone knows about me and Lil last night?”

Gabe made a sharp sound, laughter like broken glass. “Alright. That’s fair.”

He adjusted the heat on the stove and then put it back to where it was, because it hadn’t needed any attention, he was just feeling antsy at this line of talk. “People don’t know shit.”

“You’re not wrong. We do like our gossip, even when we know it’s not true.” He started to swing his legs from his perch on the counter, heels hitting the cabinet in a two-two-three rhythm. “But... you are staying. Aren’t you?”

“I’m  _ not _ coming back to work.” He prodded at his omelette a little too hard, scraping the spatula along the bottom of the pan. Swearing softly he set it aside before he could ruin the whole thing. “I never had the stomach for it. Not like you and Mikey. No. I-I’ll stick with teaching. Thanks.”

“ _ The stomach for it _ ,” Gabe repeated in an only slightly condescending tone. “You forgetting that I was the one who had to help clean up after what you did to Danny and Lee Rogers?”

Bile rose in Nick at the mere mention of the boys who he’d had to pull off his sister back when she was hardly thirteen. He’d done what any older brother would have done if they found their sister, or any girl, cornered and crying in the back room at a party. “That had nothing to do with  _ work _ ,” he whispered.

“Didn't say it did. Didn’t say you didn’t do exactly what any of us would have done, except... maybe you had a bit more restraint than Michael would’ve.” The soft kicking continued, the thudding against the cabinets seeming to help make his point. “All I’m sayin’ is that you were good at it, Nick. No one would be surprised if you officially announced you were coming back to work.”

“No.” That was all he had to say on the matter. He’d rather write about violence and death than take any real part in it and that wasn’t a decision that he’d ever once regretted. “Talk about something else. If Sam wakes up this isn’t the first thing I want him hearing.”

“If  _ Sam… _ ” Gabe’s eyebrows shot up and he looked at Nick, then back at the closed bedroom door, a wild grin starting. “If Sam ‘ _ wakes up’ _ . Wait, wait, wait, are you saying he stayed the night?”

“I’m sayin’ if he hears any of the bull shit you’re saying about me I’m going to break your nose again.” The first time had been an accident when they were teens and a bit too exuberant with their wrestling. This time would be very deliberate and very unapologetic.

“First of all, it’s  _ not _ bull shit,” Gabe leaned forward, damp hair falling in his face as he grinned. “Did you fuck him last night?”

“Eat your omelette.” 

“You  _ did _ .” He whistled long and low. “Oh wow. You son of a bitch, you really did. I mean, a bet’s a bet and you never knew when to back down from a bet, but I really didn’t think you could pull this one off.” 

“It’s because you’ve never respected how irresistible I am.” Nick glanced over his shoulder and had to stifle a laugh. “And you can wire the money directly to my bank account because American cash won't do me any good when I get back home.”

His brother laughed, amused or impressed or somewhere in between. “You cocky bastard. God, I missed you so much.”

Nick couldn’t help but smile to himself, pleased to have been missed. The feeling was all too mutual. “Your food’s getting cold.”

“How?” Gabe kept leaning forward, fingers curling around the edge of the countertop like he was bracing, eager for the answer. 

Nick fought off a grin. “Thermodynamics? I don’t know. Food just gets cold when you sit there talking instead of eating, you ass.”

“No,” Gabe grinned back, obviously enjoying himself. “I mean how’d you do it? I tried. I fucking  _ tried _ and I all I got was punched in my charming face for my efforts. And you come along, zero appeal, looking like you been living in a bus station for the past week, and yet  _ somehow  _ now I’ve got to keep my voice down because he’s back in your bed sleeping it off.”

It was really for the best that Nick had spent the last decade away from his brother. Him and Gabe always played off the worst parts of one another and inevitably Nick always heard himself saying the dumbest things when they spent too long together. “What can I say? I know how to not lose a bet.” Which is actually how this whole thing got started. He’d never known how to back down when it came to Gabe. The peril of being a big brother. The cost of pride.

“But  _ how _ ?” Gabe let go of the counter, holding his hands out in something like supplication. “I’d have pegged him as straight. Straight as a nail. I’d have put money on it. I  _ did _ put money on it. I put forty thousand dollars on the idea that he’d tell you to fuck off with a fist to the face.”

“See, there’s a trick to it―”

“A trick? Oh, do tell.”

“Yeah.” Nick leaned close like he was about to impart some sage advice. “You just gotta get so sad and pathetic that even a straight boy like him will fuck you out of pity.”

It was a joke. The bad kind of joke that he usually only brought out during these kinds of awful times when he was left alone with Gabe for too long. His brother didn’t laugh though, just blurted this soft, horrified sort of sound that could pass for a laugh to a less experienced person.

“That’s where Lil really helped me out.” Nick grinned and it hurt only the littlest bit. Nothing at all like the blur of last night, which went to show how much he’d really needed someone like Sam to pull him out of himself. That gangly kid in the other room had done more than he probably knew just by staying when he didn’t have to. When any sane person would have left while they had the chance. “I had myself a whole panic attack after what that woman did to me last night, and it was like catnip to the kid. He couldn’t keep his hands off me.”

Gabe wasn’t buying it. But there was a bit of an unspoken rule that they could only call one another out on their faults if it was for a joke. Doing it out of spite, or worse... pity, was the sort of thing that could only go badly. So Gabriel laughed another one of those fake laughs of his, shaking his head. “Panic attack after fooling around with my ex. Genius. I’ll have to try that one next time.”

“Oh, it’s the best,” Nick drawled sarcastically, loving that his baby brother was playing along despite the slight tightness to his gaze. “It’s always been my go-to when the usual bribery doesn’t work.”

“Yeah?” That slight agitation returned, just the smallest flick of his fingers, sliding the drawer open and closed by half inches. “He didn’t even let me get as far as bribery.” 

“It’s because you always come on too strong.” He turned off the stove, putting the second omelette onto a plate for himself. “I’ll give you some pointers next time, teach you how to be a standoffish and miserable son of a bitch just like your charming big brother.” Catching the edge of the drawer, he tugged it open and pulled out two forks, handing one to Gabe in a silent insistence that he finally eat the food that he’d asked for and ignored. “And then you can have gorgeous college boys, who are way out of your league, leaving bite marks on your hips too.” 

“I think Khali might have some objections to me getting mouthed around the belt by some gorgeous college boy―but you know me, I’ll try just about anything once.”

“That’s because you’re what we like to refer to as a ‘man-slut’.”

“Unlike you.”

“Unlike me.”

“Who, instead of fucking around for the pure fun of it like a normal red-blooded American, prefers to do it for profit.”

Nick rolled his eyes. Money had nothing to do with any of this. It never had. 

Staying at the counter beside his brother, he took a bite or two of the omelette before frowning and looking for the salt. 

“For profit… or for _... amour _ ?” Gabriel had still not taken a single bite of his food, preferring to dig at Nick, grinning. 

“ _ Oui… _ ” Nick finally found the salt shaker, grateful for a reason to focus on something other than the ‘I know something you don’t know’ tone in the other man’s voice.  _  “L’amour est la meilleure raison, mais-- _ ”

“No  _ buts _ . You don’t get to ho and hum your way out of this.” The rest of Nick’s feeble protests waved away, Gabe glancing down the short hallway with that smile still in place. “Michael was sayin’ that there might be some other reason for you to come back home.”

“Wow. No.” Nick was not about to stand there and listen to his baby brother explain to him how he’d got himself all kinds of mixed up wonderful feelings for the man that he’d kissed good morning. He didn’t need an unbiased party to weigh in and tell him when he was in love. 

“He said you were falling hard for that pretty college boy you got sleeping in the other room, which by the way I totally support even though it’s the actual opposite of what you were supposed to do with him, Nicky.”

“You always believe everything Mike says?”

“Pretty much, yeah.” Gabe shrugged rather unapologetically. “He generally knows what’s up.”

“Yeah well, just because he wants something to be going on doesn’t magically mean it’s going on.” Just like he used to when they were kids, Nick used the edge of his fork to start cutting up Gabe’s food, trying to encourage the other man to stop talking and eat.  

“You trying to tell me Michael’s got it wrong and you don’t have the honey-nut-feelios for that kid in there?”

“I’m saying that if I said I was coming back it was to get him to shut up about it and not some kind of pinky promise, binding contract, or confession of love. Get it?” Anything between him and Sam was between him and Sam and none of Michael’s damn business. And if Nick came back then that was between him and Sam too,  and Michael needed to butt out. 

People who talked about twins sharing a deep emotional, even psychic connection obviously were full of wishful thinking and romanticism over something that was actually terrible. Nick’s big brother had always been able to read him like every thought and feeling was transcripted and it never failed to feel like an invasion of privacy. Like his choices weren’t his own. All his decisions broadcasted before he could make them. Michael, at least that aspect of him, was definitely not anything that Nick had missed. 

“I get it. I get it,” Gabe held his hands up in surrender, though his grin never faltered. He mercifully picked up his fork and started to eat, between bites softly singing, “Nick and Sam, sittin’ in a tree,  _ i-n-l-o-v-e-e _ .”

Despite the fact that it made the words fit into the rhythm of the song, Nick felt a need to point out, “Your spelling sucks.”

“Well, your face sucks.”

“Eat me.”

“I’ll leave that up to your  _ boyfriend, _ ” Gabe said with a wink, teeth clicking around his fork. 

Nick hid a smile behind a bite of breakfast, delighting in memories of last night and how surprisingly capable and adventurous Sam had been for his first time. Memories that he’d be holding on to long after the bruises faded. 

Difficult as always, Gabe kicked out with one foot, catching Nick right above the knee. “Can we talk about how you’re blushing? Because I’d  _ looove  _ to talk about how fuckin’ cute you are right now, big bro.”

“I will manually throw you out on your boney ass if you try,” Nick said through a tight grin.    

The bedroom door opened.

Nick shoved down that grin, collecting himself, trying to remember how to look presentable and charming. It was wasted effort. Sam never even looked his way. The kid moved through the apartment with a single minded force, fully dressed, and out the front door. 

Startled, Nick barely managed to force out a confused, “Sam?” as the door slammed shut. He repeated the name again, more to himself, because the other man was already gone. 

“Ooh, Nicky, what did you do?” Gabriel seemed just as startled, the usual teasing tone that was expected from him nowhere to be heard. 

As helpful as it might have been to stand there in the kitchen theorising why the young man had stormed his way out like a bad dream, Nick had a more direct approach in mind. 

Dropping his fork, Nick all but ran out after Sam. 

The kid was already halfway down the hall towards the elevator. 

“Sam, wait up,” the marble floors were cold under Nick’s bare feet but he hardly noticed. He was blatantly being ignored and it twisted his confusion towards frustration, “Fuckin’ wait,” he demanded as he caught up and grabbed at Sam’s jacket sleeve. 

Pulling away like a man skirting injury, Sam freed himself. “Don’t touch me.” The lines of his face were furious, the hollows of his cheek dark as he ground his teeth.

Nick hadn’t expected that, and he stuttered to a stop, hand closing around empty air. “S-Sam?”

There were so many thoughts that passed over the younger man before he managed a tight but very expressive, “Fuck you.”

A very bad feeling, something dark and without a name took hold of Nick, corrosive and bitter in the pit of his stomach.

“You and your asshole brother and your god damned bet.” With each word cut off, sharp as glass, Sam was barely holding it together. “Fuck you both.” 

If Nick had understood what was going on he might have been able to mount some kind of defence, all he managed was to open and close his mouth.

“I-I should have told you no.” Sam ran his hands through his hair with an aggravated but restrained movement. “I should have kicked you out of the bar that first night. I should have  _ known  _ you were lying the whole damn time, you son of a bitch.” 

It was starting to catch up with Nick, his mind piecing the hostility together with the accusation. “I didn’t― Sam, I never lied to you.”

“Never?” He grinned, and he laughed, and neither held anything close to kindness. “ _ Really _ ? Which of your stories am I supposed to buy then, Nick?” Sam was not a small man, but this was the first time that he’d really used that height to his advantage. Looming over Nick like a storm. “That time you told me you needed someone to go with you to your parent’s anniversary so you could piss them off? Or that time you told me that you’d  _ actually  _ needed to take me with you because your brother bet that you couldn’t? Oh, or my personal favorite, that time that you told me that your brother had  _ actually  _ bet you that you couldn’t get me to fall in love with you? Are we still on that particular lie, or have we officially moved on to the bet you two had that you couldn’t fuck me?” 

There had never been any kind of bet like that.

Never. 

“That wasn’t the bet.” Nick blurted, horrified at the idea. “I told you everything last night―”

“Did you?” Never once through all of this had Sam raised his voice, and that made it worse somehow, that quite, nearly calm accusation. “You’ve told me everything so many times now, Nick. And every damn time it’s a different story.”

“Sam, we didn’t―”

“Don’t,” the younger man cut him off too quickly. “Don’t you even start. I heard enough back there,” he flicked his hand towards the apartment. “So fuck you. And fuck me for falling for you in the first place. I… I,” he shook his head, “I’ve got to go get ready for work.”

There were things that he should be saying, but all Nick seemed to be able to do was stand there replaying all the things that he and Gabe had spent the last half hour joking about. What parts had Sam overheard? Apparently only the wrong ones.

Sam was walking away again, slamming a hand down on the elevator button. 

Panic had made a mess of his thoughts. All Nick could manage was a feeble, “Wait,” because he knew he had to say something. 

Hunching his shoulders Sam quietly demanded, “For what?”

“Just  _ wait _ ,” Nick was very aware how close to a plea that sounded and he honestly did not care. “Please,” the word felt practically unnatural as he padded softly down the hall, closer and closer like the distance between them was the problem here. “Just, it’s… it’s not what it sounded like. Whatever you heard, me and Gabe were just being asses, you know. Just joking around. We weren’t―”   

“Save your breath.” Sam looked back over his shoulder, his jaw tight as he glowered at the diminishing space between them. “I mean, there were no confessions of love between us, right? No binding contract. No pinky promises.” He spit Nick’s own words back at him, obviously not knowing what they had originally meant. “I got my twenty thousand, and you got your pity fuck. We’re even. There’s really nothing else to say.” 

“Sam―”

“Let me try this again, since you’re not getting it, Nick. I’m this close to punching you, you lying, manipulative son of a bitch. So it’s in your best interest to shut the hell up for once.”  

The elevator sounded a soft  _ ding _ as the double doors slid open, and Sam just stepped right on in. The first part of a magic trick―next the doors would close, then he would be gone. It was a god awful trick.

Right then would have been an amazing time for Nick to say all sorts of things, despite the very clear warning. Important things. Clarifying things. Because he would never use Sam like that, and he’d never lie, despite all those perfect examples that had been thrown in his face. 

A few lies of omission didn’t count. 

They didn’t.

All Nick managed in his own defence was a strangled sounding, “Please don’t,” which clarified nothing.

But one hand reached out of the elevator, stopping the doors, holding them open. Sam said nothing. Nothing at all. He only looked at Nick, the pinched anger in his eyes softening for a fraction of a second, and all there was behind that righteous betrayal was pain.

Nick was supposed to be good with words. He made a living off them. Right then, though, he had nothing. He’d forgotten every single one. Standing in that hallway, the warmth leaving his body through his feet, his chest aching like he’d already been sucker punched, all he could manage was to look at Sam.

The doors chimed again, struggling softly back and forth against the hand holding them.

Sam took a sharp breath, his chest rising too fast as he asked “ _ Why _ ?” Like he needed for Nick to speak, despite his earlier threat. 

And what a stupid question it was.

_ ‘Why _ ?’

Here Nick thought that it was only too obvious.

Because at this point in his life he had so much more than just a simple crush on the other man. 

Because as of a few days ago that awful L-word had started factoring in and he really wasn’t ready for it.  

Because Sam leaving, angry and hurt, was possibly the worst thing that Nick could ever imagine, even on one of his worst days.

Struggling with the crippling silence, he found some words through the heart racing panic. Nick dragged them up and laid them out because had to say something. He had to say anything at all before those doors closed between them. 

“You’re wearing my clothes,” Nick fumbled over the first thought that he could string into a sentence, though he could tell it wasn’t even halfway close to the right thing. 

Sam looked down at himself. At the ratty jeans and t-shirt with a cartoon moose, the worn leather jacket that was a little too tight across the shoulders. “Yeah well, I left my clothes at  Cas’ last night when I changed for the party... and I am not leaving here in a tux.” 

The elevator doors continued to fight against Sam’s hold,  _ dinging  _ impatiently.

“Sam, I love… I love that shirt,” by which Nick meant, ‘ _ I love you. Please don’t leave _ ’, though it was very likely that the words didn’t translate as well as he’d hoped. 

Those shadows came back to Sam’s cheeks, his jaw tight as he forced the words between his teeth, “I’ll get the clothes to Castiel. The rest is your problem.” The elevator won the fight, the doors sliding silently closed as Sam dropped his hand.

Which wasn’t how this was supposed to go.

There wasn’t even a goodbye. 

Not even a chance for Nick to convince Sam that this was just an awful misunderstanding. 

“No,” frustration at himself made the protest hardly more than a growl. Nick came forward too late, taking a swing at the closed doors. Swearing past the pain and cradling his throbbing fist to his stomach, Nick struggled to come up with a way that could have gone any worse. 

He wasn’t good with relationships, at least not real ones. Which is why he wrote stories and lived alone. If he and Sam were characters in one of his books he would have taken the stairs right then, he would have raced the elevator to the ground floor, meeting Sam at the door and confessing love while he struggled to catch his breath. They would have spoken, lots of romantic but angry words that would have taken Nick days to put together perfectly, and things would have ended with a perfect kiss and a perfect apology and a perfect understanding. But Nick’s very logical brain was pointing out that this was real life, not one of his stories, and he needed to give Sam some space to calm down before he’d accept any kind of apology or explanation.  

The apartment was dead silent when he let himself back in. Gabe standing close enough to the door, wearing a poorly guarded expression of pain and pity so that it was obvious that he’d been either listening or watching the whole mess. Nick had meant to go to the kitchen and get some ice for his hand―instead, he went for his brother. 

“You,” someone was going to take the blame for this one, and it wasn’t going to be Nick. “This is your fault.”

“Mine?” Gabriel wasn’t an idiot, and at the first sign of trouble, he’d immediately started backing away, moving around the furniture to keep a barrier between them. “No. No, I’m an innocent bystander here.”

“You just couldn’t shut up, could you? You’ve got to make every goddamned thing a joke.” Nick rounded the coffee table. “Because of you, he thinks I was trying to fuck him for cash.”

“And… and you’d rather he know that you’d be willing to do it for free?” Gabe’s smile was a half-hearted effort, all for show, to try and mask the nervousness. “Cause I got to tell you, a guy who looks like that? He already knows. But I can tell him for you, if you like.”

Nick would not like, actually. He grabbed at his younger brother, furious fistfuls of his jacket, and then had to fight like a mad man to keep hold. Gabriel was small and fast and not interested in having his nose broken today. More furious flailing than a real fight, Nick finally managed to get his hands around the other man’s throat, shoving him into the recliner and holding him down. 

“He left because of you.”

Making a choking sound as he struggled for a full breath, Gabriel held very tightly to Nick’s wrists. “No. You  _ met  _ him because of me.”

“Fuck you,” Nick wasn’t strangling his brother exactly, but he wasn’t loosening his grip either. 

“You’re welcome, by the way,” he wheezed and kept going. “Him leaving’s all on you though, you bag of dicks.”

Despite how stupid the idea had seemed when it first came to him, Nick realised with a crippling sort of feeling, that he actually should have raced the elevator down. Hell, he should have accepted the threat of physical violence and pulled Sam from the elevator before he even had a chance to get on. He should have held on to him, told him he loved him, and not let go until Sam believed every word of it. But, here he was holding Gabe instead. 

Hands shaking only a little, Nick let go and sank to the floor. “I hate… I just hate everything so fucking much, you know that?”

Face red, throat raw, Gabe straightened in his chair, coughing softly and drawing one knee up like it could act as a safety barrier should he suddenly need one. “Yeah, what’s new?”

Nick sighed like a defeat. He had no idea how long of a cooling off period was necessary for something like that, but he knew he had a few things to set straight before he was allowed to talk to Sam again. “Keep the money, Gabe.” 

Watching him warily, his younger brother raised an eyebrow. 

“Keep the  _ fuckin’  _ money,” he repeated with a bit more force, rubbing a hand over his face. “I lied before. You won the bet.”

“Obviously.” Slowly, very slowly, Gabe lowered his knee. He struggled out of his jacket, straightening his shirt and tie before tucking hair behind his ears, putting himself back together like his big brother hadn’t just throttled him.  “Don’t take this the wrong way, Nicky, but I liked it better when you won.”

Nick laughed, and it hurt. “Yeah. Me too.”

  
  
  
  



	27. Chapter 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> eeeey *finger guns* bet you didn't expect this. Well, happy Monday friends (or whenever you're reading this). Though you may not have seen it coming, this is the last chapter :3 thank you, thank you for coming along on this journey with me for yet another fake relationship/domestic mishap. your encouraging comments and enjoyment and rage at these stories give me life and I can't say thank you enough <3  
> true to my nature I've sort of got a few new stories hanging out on my computer... shocking, right? I've got a problem obviously, but we all get to benefit from it? so don't consider the end of this story a goodbye, but a 'I'll be right back'. Just to whet your whistles, next time you hear from my it's either going to be witchAU Winchesters, or (weirdly enough) a short DeanXLucifer story, because I've converted myself over the last few stories and apparently needed these two idiots kissing??  
> And though it's not normally a thing that I do, I'd like to point y'all towards user wearemykingdom over on the tumblr, who is making a freaking Samifer artbook. You can find it over on Ulele, the name of the book is going to be Adstringo. I doubt that Ao3 allows links but the url is fr.ulule.com/adstringo-artbook/ and maybe check it out if that's your thing, because I'm super pumped and it's almost fully funded and yeah XD excited  
> without further ramblings (though I am amazing at it), have a nice THE END  
> y'all deserve it <3

Property damage was not Sam’s usual go-to when he was angry. Typically he prefered to internalise, to brood and soak in his quiet rage until he felt sick about it. To be fair, he very rarely ever got all that angry.  Today though? Today he had a hard time finding a single thing that didn’t make him want to put his fist through a wall. 

**werwolfofSF** (13:26): what a total creep!

Sam grumpily licked the Dorito dust from his fingers before wiping them on his jeans and typing a reply.

**winchesterlosechester** (13:26): possibly the worst human I’ve ever met

It hadn’t taken that long to catch Madison up on everything that had happened between that first ‘fake date’ and this morning. He’d told his friend all about the ever changing bet that just kept getting worse and worse with each update. He told her about sharing a bed, about Nick fooling around with Dean, about kissing the other man at the stroke of midnight last night, and about taking Nick home after he’d had the run-in with his ex. For reason he still wasn't wholly sure about he left out the parts about the heavy making out that had very quickly gone down hill and lead to some phenomenal sex. Not that Madison wouldn’t understand, seeing as she herself had been on a fairly hetrosexual life path until she fell in love with another woman. But Sam wasn’t ready to talk about it yet. Not until he figured out how he wanted to feel about the best sex he’d ever had being nothing more than a meaningless lay, a means to an end, so one lying son of a bitch could win a bet with his son of a bitch brother. 

Sam also left out the part where he’d fallen in love with that son of a bitch. Fallen in love with a lightning storm; something beautiful and terrible and it couldn’t ever love him back. Last night the words had been empty hyperbole said by a man drunk on old heartache. Just flowery and too poetic in the weird way that Nick could be sometimes, but today Sam felt those words down in his bones. 

Because as awful as it was, Sam loved Nick―and it was nothing like he’d been told that love would be. Love didn’t make things nice. It ruined everything. It broke his heart and made a mess. 

**winchesterlosechester** (13:28): it’s my fault. I should have known from the beginning that he wanted more than a date

**werwolfofSF** (13:35): its not your fault, Sam. this isn’t the kind of thing that guys normally have to worry about. Most guys probably go their whole lives without ever once having someone lying to them just to get them in bed.   

**winchesterlosechester** (13:36): yeah? But when was the last time a guy offered you 20k for sex?

**werwolfofSF** (13:36): dude. you’re lucky. usually they wanted it for free

What an awful thing to say, but definitely true. Sam had been working in a bar for only a few months and he’d seen the exact scenario Madison was proposing played out a hundred times over. Usually Sam did his best to step in, this protective white knight mentality drilled into him from a young age by Dean (amusingly enough since Dean himself had never shied away from bending the truth to get a girl back to his place). But the all chivalry and good intentions in the world hadn't been enough for Sam to realise when he himself had been marked as prey. 

**winchesterlosechester** (13:36): sorry men are so shitty

**werwolfofSF** (13:37): not all of them. 

**werwolfofSF** (13:37): Welcome to the “I met a dude and he seemed nice and I thought we could be friends but he only wanted in my pants” club. Sorry your friend turned out to be such a dickhole

Reading his friend’s consolation two or three times over, Sam realised that he was now part of a not so exclusive club, and that sucked. This wasn’t how today was supposed to go. It wasn’t how any of this was supposed to go.

**werwolfofSF** (13:39): good you found out about it before he made a move on you or something awkward tho. right?

Yeah, that would have been awesome.

That would have been Sam’s favorite.

Pinching up the last few crumbly bits of chips, Sam finished his impromptu meal of the only food that he’d been able to find in the dormroom that had still been edible after both him and his roommate being out for well over a week. He licked his fingers, but this time instead of wiping them on his jeans he sat there at his computer desk and ran a thumb slowly over his lower lip; rather unsteadily remembering the way that Nick had kissed him this morning. So slow and gentle and like he meant it.

But what did Sam know.

Obviously he was an idiot about the whole thing and not qualified to make good judgement calls.   

He crinkled the empty bag of Doritos, looking at the clock and sighing. Typing out a thank you and an excusable goodbye to Madison, Sam logged off the computer and finished getting ready for work. 

Working at Reese’s wasn’t like working at the bar. There wasn’t a dress code. Basically the whole idea was to simply wear something warm enough to be out on the New York streets during the persistent snowfall, that also couldn’t get ruined by a little engine grease. Back when Sam had first started working here he’d been a little intimidated by his ‘coworkers’, all of who were vaguely reminiscent of his uncle Bobby, but with criminal records and a lot more profanity. However, the roughnecks had welcomed him in as one of their own once they realised he knew his way around the inside of a car, and his welcome back to work involved a lot of hard slaps to his back and even one very masculine hug from one of the guys closer to his own age. 

If Sam had been in a better mood he would have felt sort of happy to be back, but the best that he managed was a few tight smiles, asking general questions about the wife and kids, and then mercifully he had work to do. It was a relief to have something to take his mind off today’s downhill slide. Taking a car apart was not the time to get lost in self pity. 

Half way through stripping a Nissan Accord down to its bare frame he felt a kick to his left ankle. Not bothering to roll out from under the engine block, because he wasn’t in the mood to drop the camshaft on his face, he raised his voice, “Yeah?”

It was Reese’s voice that came down past the sound of powertools and buzz of conversation. “What’ve you been up to,  _ mijo _ ?”

“Visiting family out west…?” Confused, Sam craned his neck to one side, looking up past the engine to see the older Dominican man looking down at him. Usually his boss was like a ghost, the head of this operation, Reese hardly ever came out of his office unless someone needed to get chewed out. And though he currently wore an uncharacteristic smile under his greying moustache, seeing him nearly always meant trouble. 

“No, I mean, what the fuck did you do? Why is the boss’ brother here asking for you?”

Sam finished loosening the bolts he’d been working on, and pulling free the bit of machinery, he dug his heels into the cement and dragged himself out from under the car. “You got a brother, Reese?”

“ _ My _ boss.” He was obviously less than amused, thick arms folded tight over his soft midsection. It was all working muscle, not aesthetic muscle, and the man was terrifying in his own quiet way.  “The fuck trouble you bringing my way,  _ mijo _ ?”

“I didn’t know you had a boss.” Sam got to his feet, laying aside the engine part on the tarp beside his car. His mind struggling to shift gears from work thoughts to whatever the hell this was. 

Trouble. 

It was trouble. 

Reese stood there continuing to be unimpressed, waiting for some kind of explanation.

“Look, I’m sorry. I don’t know what I did.” More confused than anything else, Sam didn’t feel the apology he gave, but it seemed appropriate in order to keep his job.

Though his head hardly reached Sam’s shoulder, the intimidation factor of Reese was something to aspire to. “He’s in my office. Go fix this.”

“Yeah. Yeah.” Sam scrubbed his hands on the legs of his coveralls, leaving long dark smears of oil, before heading out to the front office of the very respectable and legitimate auto body shop that had closed to the public a few hours ago. Ready to face a spookier version of Reese, Sam took a cleansing breath and made sure to keep his face as blank as possible. 

Only, he didn’t expect to see Gabriel when he opened the office door. 

Pulling the words up from a deep and personal space, Sam said with so much feeling,  “Oh, fuck you. No.”

Gesturing wide with one arm, grinning, Gabriel beckoned to Sam. “Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly.”

“Get. Bent.”

“Is that really how you talk to your boss?”

“I fuckin’ quit, you son of a bitch.”

“See, it’s not that easy, Sammy.” His grin was so close to his big brother’s it was uncomfortable. “You come sit down. We talk. You don’t like what I have to say you can punch me. You try to leave before I’m done talking with you and… well… place like this, all these power tools, accidents happen. You get it?”

Sam was nearly certain that he’d never been threatened quite so openly before. It wasn’t great. Turning down the offer to punch Gabriel in his pointed little nose though, well, an offer like that was too good to pass up. So Sam closed the office door behind him.  “I guess somehow you’re my boss’ boss’ brother?”

“I mean, we’re all someone’s boss’ brother, right?”

“No.” Whatever this was was already off to a great start. 

“I met Reese a few years back in a holding cell while waiting for my bail to come through. Great guy.” Gabriel put his feet up on the desk, still smiling Nick’s smile and it kept getting worse. “I introduce him to Michael, and you know, sometimes things just work out.”

As fascinating as this all was, Gabriel coming out here in the middle of the night almost definitely was about what had happened this morning and any other topic of conversation was just stalling. Sam didn’t know the guy well enough to tell if the stalling was because of nerves or because he was an asshole. Before he could demand that they just get on with this, Gabriel kept on talking, very near rambling and it would have been almost charming except for him being who he was. 

“This is where I first saw you, you know? About two months back, I stopped by to drop off a baby present for Reese’s daughter. First grandkid and all, it’s sort of a big deal. And there you were, out there filing serial numbers off an engine, and hot damn. First time in my life I’ve ever gotten hot and bothered over another man. Couldn’t get you out of my mind.”

“Wow. I don’t care.” This was irritating. Not flattering, but at the same time, it didn’t necessarily feel like it was meant to be.   

The other man didn’t seem to be flirting so much as he just had no filter. “Eventually I gave in and found out your name and about your other job, and I came in to the bar and tested out the waters.”

“You grabbed my ass. Twice.”

“I prefer a direct approach.” He shrugged rather unapologetically. “You obviously didn’t… or you were just incredibly straight.”

Sam hated this. 

“So, I cut my losses and moved on,” his grin went sideways as he started laughing at the memories, “but then my big brother came to town and I thought I’d have a little fun with him. It’s been forever since I met anyone who might actually just tell him to his face to fuck off and I wanted to see it. Nick’s an awful gambler. I remember this one time that he bet me two thousand dollars that one rain drop would beat another one down a window. Or once when he refused to take tylenol because he thought he could get his fever to reach a hundred and one.”

“Did it?” Sam wasn’t sure why he cared. 

“He got lucky and it went to a hundred and three.” Gabriel laughed again, warmth and nostalgia making his eyes bright, and it was so obvious how much he loved his big brother. “I knew he couldn’t say no to trying to get you to Mom and Dad’s anniversary. If only because I told him there was no way he could.”

“Yeah, but that wasn’t all of your fuckin’ bet. Was it?”  Even if it had been then Sam still would have been irritated because Nick lied from the start. He’d left out any mention of the bet until Dean had called him out on it, and even then he’d twisted it and left out the really important parts. If he’d said then and there that the bet had been to get Sam into bed, even if he’d promised that it’s not what he intended to do, then the younger man would have done a lot more than just slap Nick upside the head.   

“No. It wasn’t. I knew if he somehow was able to sweet talk you into dinner then the next day he’d piss off again back to France for another ten years.” Gabe pushed hair from his face, tucking it behind his ears and shrugging. “So I bet he couldn’t get you to fall for him by New Years, just so I could keep him around for a couple weeks. Just a little harmless romance, you know? I love my brother but he’s a miserable, grumpy, hermit with all the charm of a pair of wet socks. I’m honestly surprised that you put up with him long enough to become friends.”

“You are so full of shit.”

“I know you’ve got no reason to believe me, Sam-ich. But it’s true. Cross my heart.” He dragged a finger in an X over the center of his chest, so earnest, like they were kids and the gesture meant anything at all.

“I heard the two of you talking this morning.”

“Yeah. I’m sure from the way your stormed out that you heard at least part of what we were saying. And I sort of get why you’d be pissed at us joking about you two getting it on. But come on, kiddo, it was just joking. And I know my sense of humor isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but he’s your crappy friend. I thought you’d be used to his bull shit by now.” 

Sam wasn’t sure how he was meant to react to that one. He’d never had someone tell him a lie about himself like that. Is that really what Gabe believed, that Nick had been joking around?

“It was shitty of me to drag you into this whole thing. All kinds of selfish basically setting you two up on a date just so I can keep my favorite brother around for a little longer, but that’s just who I am. Really though, it’s no harm done since he lost the bet.”

“He  _ lost  _ the bet?”

“Obviously.” He had some over active hands, folding them for a moment over his stomach before fidgeting with his tie. “I’m not complaining mind you. Easiest forty grand I’ve ever made.” 

His thoughts were a maze, lost and near frantic struggling to find any direction and logic and only coming up with dead end after dead end. There was too much of a discrepancy in what he knew that he’d heard this morning and what he wanted to believe tonight. Equal parts hope and hurt made him weak, and he sat on the edge of the desk as casually as he could while he struggled to decide what he wanted to believe.

“Did Nick put you up to this?” Though he’d rather not, Sam couldn’t help but go with the most logical option here.

“Haha, no.” Gabriel laughed a little tightly. “In fact if you ever feel like talking to him again, I’d appreciate you leaving out that I was ever here tonight, seeing as he threatened me with castration should I ever bother you again.”

Even though he didn’t want it, the smallest curl of a smile was starting to tug at Sam. “You do know that that only makes me really, really want to tell him.”

“Do what you’ve got to, as long as I get a head start.”

Taking a slow breath through his nose, Sam ran a hand through his hair. “If he didn’t send you, then why are you here?”

“Because I love my brother, and regardless of how you feel, he’s pretty messed up about this whole business. I don’t think he was ready to get accused of trying to lie his way into bed with a friend. He might not look it, but under all that prickly exterior, he’s got a gentle soul… at least I think he is... he used to be.” Another one of those tight laughs as he continued to mess with his tie. “Hell. I don’t know what I’m saying. I apologised to him, so I’ve filled my quota for the year. Sorry, kiddo, that means I’ve got no sympathy left for you―but I figured if you wanted to be pissed off at someone you might want to direct it towards this jackass here messing around in your life, not the idiot who can’t say no to a bet, even one he was always obviously going to lose.”

If that’s all it was, if the whole stupid thing had really honestly and legitimately laid out for Sam last night, then it still  _ was  _ a stupid bet. One that should have been a guaranteed loss. 

One that Nick had accidently won, even though it now felt painfully obvious that it had never been his intention. 

Maybe Nick, just like Gabe, had originally been looking for an excuse to stay here for a while. It had been clear from the start how much the man loved his family, despite all his words to the contrary. 

And maybe Nick, just like Sam, had enjoyed the good company.

Rubbing a knuckle over his lower lip, he found himself once again thinking about this morning’s kiss, at how very honest and vulnerable it had felt.  

“You thinkin’ about him?” Gabe asked with this knowing, smug sort of tone.

Self consciously, Sam dropped his hand to his lap. “Shut up.”

“Yeah, he gets the same hit by a truck expression when he thinks about you too.”

“Shut up.”

With a sigh, sort of mumbling to himself, Gabriel lamented, “Man, I should have come and talked to you about this earlier.”

It was obviously bait, but Sam took it all the same. “Why?”

“Because Nick’s already gone home.”

“What?” Sam slid off the desk, instantly agitated. “His flight doesn’t leave until tomorrow.”

Gabriel’s hands came up in something like surrender. “Yeah, well apparently that wasn’t soon enough. I dropped him off at the airport before heading over here.”

Like an itch, Sam looked at the wall clock. Nick didn’t seem like the sort of person to cautiously arrive two hours before a flight like the airport recommended, so did that mean that he was already on a plane over the Atlantic? Was he really gone?

Gabriel turned rather theatrically to look at the clock as well. “I don’t think his flight is boarding for about an hour… if you leave now you might be able to catch him.”

For half a second Sam’s legs tried to take him out the door, wanting to run and take whatever slim chance ‘about an hour’ might give him. But logic ran deep in Sam, at least most days. “Catch him?”

“Yeah,” Gabriel was half way out of his seat, easily the most enthusiastic person in the room.

“Why?”

“Because the last time I saw my brother look as broken as he did today was the last time I took him to the airport, and then I didn’t see him for a decade.” For the first time since they’d met, Gabriel put some real force behind his words, some seriousness for a change. “The only thing he’s worse at than having feelings is talking about them. It’s never easy admitting when you’ve hurt someone, or when you’ve fallen in love.”

Sam didn’t have a response to that.

“You told him to piss off so he did.” Gabriel took out a set of car keys and held them up between them. “If you’re having second thoughts about that, Sammy…” 

The offer was left dangling between them.

Along with that very subtle accusation.

Nosy little bastard who kicked this whole mess off, coming back into the ring for round two. 

Sam took the keys with his left hand, because his right hook had always been better, and he’d been specifically told that if he didn’t like what the other man had to say that he could punch him. He left behind the office, and the drawn, pained noises coming from Gabriel. 

It would have been a masterful exit if he hadn’t had to turn around and peek back in to ask, “Nick’s flight going out of JFK or Laguardia?”

Gabe’s voice was muffled behind his hands, the blood on his fingers startlingly red. “JFK.”

“... sorry.”

The laugh that came out of him was slightly pained and very wet. “No you’re not.”

“That was a little harder than I meant it.”

“Just fuckin’ go already.” With blood on his teeth, Gabe grinned. “We can talk later about how you hit like my grandma.”

“Hmm, well, I try harder next time.” This was the first that Sam had ever seen anything in Gabriel that he liked, it was something that he would try and focus on next time he found himself getting frustrated while talking to the other man. 

The drive to the airport wasn’t nearly long enough to give Sam time to try and figure out what he wanted to say to Nick. A simple ‘sorry I thought you were just using me for a little cash and a little ass’ didn’t really have the right ring to it. If he hadn’t been too mad this morning to listen to Nick they wouldn’t be in this position… then again, if Nick was even remotely capable of expressing something resembling human feelings that might have helped a little too. Oddly enough, telling Sam that he was stealing his favorite shirt hadn’t carried any deeply significant feelings. 

God, but they really might be bad for each other. Sam couldn’t remember a single other friend that he’d ever had who could effortlessly made him as irritated, or as stupidly happy, as Nick could.

Parking Gabriel’s very nice Corvette, and sprinting across the parking lot, Sam found himself overly aware that he was still in his work clothes. Boots, coveralls, and an undershirt. Not exactly ideal clothes for mid winter, but it wasn’t the least bad choice that he’d made today so far. By the time he made it into the terminal he was furiously rubbing goosebumps from his arms while trying to read the arrival and departure screens to see which flight might possibly be Nick’s. 

It would have all been a terribly thought out plan, if there had been any plan at all. 

Giving up, Sam went to the nearest counter, smiling tight lipped at the airline employee and hoping he wasn’t about to come off like a crazy person. “A friend of mine is leaving on a plane to France in the next hour. Is there anyway you can page him?”

The dark haired woman behind the counter blinked up at him, slowly taking in the mess that was Sam and nodding slowly. “Sure thing. What’s his name?”

“Nick Novak.” He slumped slightly, relieved at the instant help.

She stepped off to one side and picked up what looked like an old corded phone, then her voice came on the overhead PA. “Nick Novak. Nick Novak, please pick up a white courtesy phone and dial two.” She set down the receiver and smiled at Sam. “You can just wait over there, pick up when it rings,” and she waved to a line of those airport phones along the wall by the doors that Sam came in. 

Waiting for Nick to call him on a public phone Sam had the very sudden, very stupid realisation that he could just call Nick’s cell. Patting his pockets Sam discovered that he’d left his phone along with his wallet back at the garage. Which was great. It’s not like he would need his ID or his phone or anything tonight. 

Sam waited. 

And waited.

And then at a certain point realised that Nick wasn’t calling, either because he sensed that it was Sam here calling for him, or because he was already on his plane. Though that was a defeatist attitude and he hadn’t driven all the way out here in the middle of the night to give up  _ that  _ easily. So, he went back to the counter and tried to look charming until someone back there took notice of him. 

Thankfully the same woman as before caught his eye and nodded him over, and with some generous customer service that she was by no means obligated to give, she asked him,  “Do you know your friend’s flight number?” 

“I-I don’t.”

“Which airline was he taking?”

“I don’t know that either.”

Her professional smile dimmed, and it was anyone’s guess what she was starting to think.

However, Sam didn’t plan to ever see this woman again, so it’s not like he needed to try and save face. “He’s- he’s my boyfriend. We had a fight this morning and I left instead of listening to him and I need to tell him I’m sorry and that I love him before he’s just gone. I’m hate to ask, but is there any way you can look him up or-or find out what gate he might be at? Have someone there give him a message for me?” 

It could almost be guaranteed that what Sam was asking her to do breached some security rules. But it’s not like he was asking to be let pass TSA to just run around looking for Nick. He just needed the nice lady to find where the other man was and have someone yell ‘sorry’ at him for Sam.

The look she gave Sam was a long one before a soft sort of smile that hadn’t been there before crept into her eyes. She held up one finger, asking him to wait while she clacked away at her keyboard. 

“I can’t pull up the passenger list for any flights, but I can… I can tell you that the next flight to France doesn’t leave until ten tomorrow morning.”

“But his brother said that he was getting on a plane tonight.”

“I’m sorry,” She looked up with a very earnest expression. “The last flight today left almost an hour ago.”

“Of course it did.” Sam grumbled, running a hand through his hair and swearing very softly under his breath. “Sorry…  _ fuck _ . Sorry, that wasn’t at you. Just today is, wow it’s really just been a day. Thank you for- for checking any ways.”

The woman took all the rambling and profanity in stride, a true professional who actually looked sad about this. “Sorry I couldn’t help.”

He waved her off and with a crippled sort of feeling he turned to leave, his mind struggling to figure out what he should do now. The person in line behind him was standing much closer than Sam had been anticipating and with his thoughts elsewhere he didn’t react fast enough to not crash into the other man. Muttering what felt like his tenth apology in the last minute it took him a few seconds longer than it should have to realise that he knew the man whose toes he was standing on. 

“Nick?” Relief made Sam more stupid than normal and without waiting for any kind of conformation he took the other man firmly by the face and pulled him up into a rough kiss. It wasn’t a kiss that was returned or even really received and the other man’s stunned silence seemed enough to bring Sam to his senses. Letting go of Nick, Sam took a step back, heart racing, and irritation taking hold. “What are you doing here?”

“W-what am I doing here?” Nick’s eyes were too wide, his cheeks too pink. “What the hell are  _ you _ doing here?”

“Why didn’t you call the- the courtesy phone?”

“Um, well, because it’s a public phone and almost definitely hasn’t been cleaned since the Nixon administration and I’m not about to put that against my cheek.” He rubbed at the side of his face like he was scrubbing away the idea of touching the phone, before frowning at Sam. “Seriously thought. It’s not that I’m not happy, and  _ very confused _ to see you, but why are you here?”

“I didn’t want you to leave before I could…” Sam fumbled over the words, his tongue clumsy and slow because apparently saying this to a complete stranger working at the airport was easier than saying it to the right person. “You didn’t leave.”

“No. I came down here to reschedule my flight to next week and to drop of Anna so she could take a red eye flight back home.”

“Wait,” Sam couldn’t have heard that right, “ _next_ _week_?”

Hand never leaving his face Nick started to play with his lip. Eyes darting to the few other people around the help counter who were eying them back. “ _ Oui. J’ai en besion _ … um, I needed... I mean, there were some things here that I still had to take care.”  

Sam typically tried to keep most of his dealings with other people as honest as he could. He’d never been a big fan of lying, so it sort of pissed him off to realise that this wasn’t yet another misunderstanding. It was just one more lie to add to the collection. “Gabriel said that you decided to take an earlier flight.”

“Well, Gabriel is an asshole and a compulsive liar.” Nick cracked a smile that stayed mostly hidden by the nervous movement of his hand. “Wait, is that why you’re here?” 

“I already told you. I didn’t want you to leave before…”

“Before what?”

Before nothing. 

Sam didn’t want Nick to leave.

At all.

Just like that, and he was back to where he’d been twenty-four hours ago. Back when they were curled up in bed together and Sam could not stop smiling. Nothing but warm, uselessly stupid and hopeful feelings towards this man here. This utter mess of a human being. 

“Can we maybe talk about this somewhere else with less of an audience?”

“I don’t know, I’m seeing them as something more like witnesses, and they might be the only thing keeping me safe at this point.” His half hearted smile said he was mostly joking.

Apparently it had been Nick’s place to screw everything up this morning, and Sam’s turn tonight. How wonderful that they could take turns like this. What a good and functional couple they were. In a bold powermove, Sam took Nick’s hand and pulled him along towards the doors. “Whether you like it or not, Luci, we’re going to talk―without any witnesses, because it’s easier for me.”

“Oh, easy for  _ you _ . Why didn’t you say so?” Nick let himself get dragged, complaining as they stepped out into the frigid air. “Oh, and you’re taking me away from the nice cabs that I could pay to drive me home. And we’re going into the snow. Good. Yes. I’d love to top off the masterpiece of today with freezing to death with you. It seems fitting.”

“For god’s sake. We’re going to the parking garage.”

“Why?”

Stopping at a crosswalk, Sam waited for a line of taxis to pass. “Because that’s where I parked.”

“Didn’t know you could drive,” Nick mumbled, taking his low key kidnapping in stride.

Doing his best not to encourage the joking, because it would only make this more complicated, Sam resumed pulling the other man across the street and into the shelter of the parking garage. “I-I’m sorry about this morning.”

“Hey, that’s my line,” Nick didn’t exactly accept the apology gracefully, though he did twist his wrist free of Sam’s grip so that he could lace their fingers together. Either he was tired of being pulled and wanted to look slightly more normal to anyone who might see them pass by, or he was feeling a little brave.

Missing a step as he looked down at their hands, Sam fought back a grin. “Just shut up and let me talk, ok?”

Nick pursed his lips and nodded, but didn’t say anything else.

Even though he’d been working on this problem for some time now, Sam still wasn’t entirely sure what to say, and he used the time weaving between cars on their way to the elevator to try and figure out the least awkward way to say this. 

There didn’t seem to be one.

“I should have listened to you this morning, but I was too pissed off.” He hit the elevator button and watched the little light counting down. “I was so mad. I… I thought the worst thing possible because at the time it made more sense than someone like you liking someone like me.”

“Am I allowed to say something now?”

“No,” Sam said like a warning because he could. “You lied to me, Nick. You lied from the beginning, and don’t you dare think that this morning’s misunderstanding changes that.”

“If I’d told you the truth you would have thrown me out of the bar on my ass.”

Sam couldn’t exactly argue with that. “Then we’ll consider the lie worth the cost of admission, because it got us here. But if you ever fuckin’ lie like that again I won’t hesitate to throw you out on your ass after punching you in the throat. You got something going on that you don’t think I can handle, tell me we can’t talk about it right then. I’d rather you tell me it’s none of my damn business than lie to me.”

The elevator opened and Sam pulled the other man in with him, opening his mouth to say more, but grumbling into silence as a tired looking family joined them; a young man and woman, both holding a sleeping child and a suitcase. It put a temporary halt on both accusations and negotiations. 

In the quiet, as the elevator counted up the floors with soft chimes, Nick softly squeezed Sam’s hand. 

Sam squeezed back just as gently, sort of afraid that Nick might actually notice it. 

Soon enough the doors opened on their floor and Sam resumed leading the way, keeping the other man in tow, passing so many cars under the harsh fluorescent lights. 

“Do I get to say something  _ now _ ?” Nick pressed.

“Do you have to?”

“I mean… I’d rather not. For whatever reason I always turn into a rambling idiot when I try to talk to you.” With a heavy sigh, Nick stopped walking, forcing Sam to stop as well. “But this is an unmitigated cluster fuck of a problem that you apologised for when you didn’t have to. And I’m no good at this, but I’m not accepting your apology because it would make me feel like even more of an asshole than I already know I am. Look, I’m sorry I sort of lied―”

Sam grit his teeth. This wasn’t one of those things that could be ‘sort of’, and the other man’s words instantly pulled all those nice feelings out from under him.

“I wasn’t expecting to ever see you again after that first dinner. I didn’t think that I’d like you so much, that I’d... ” Nick looked down at his ratty shoes and his voice lost most of its strength. “I didn’t realise how fuckin’ perfect you were and how screwed I was from the moment I first saw you. I was in way over my head from the start.”

This was once more, one of those things that Sam just didn’t have a response for, and he sort of hoped that impulsive action could take the place of the right thing to say. He used Nick’s arm to pull him close, close enough to hug, and that warm embrace broke the older man.

He stood there being crushed against Sam’s chest, tripping over words that didn’t come close to resembling English. 

“It makes it less weird if you put your arms around me too,” Sam whispered into Nick’s ear and felt him shiver slightly in response before finally hugging back. Thankfully it didn’t go on too long, the awkwardness might have turned into something worse. “Come on, it’s cold out here.”

“Yeah. It is.” Nick stepped back, pretending to dust himself off, exhaling sharply while he collected himself.

Uncertain, but needing the clarification, Sam asked, “We’re ok?”

With a sharp laugh, Nick looked up. “How-how the hell should I know? You tell me.”

“You can’t just make this easy?” That familiar old frustration crept up. “Yes. We are, you son of a bitch. We’re ok, and I love you, and I swear to god I’ve never wanted to hit someone as much as I’ve wanted to hit you today.” Which meant that it was Sam’s turn to look at his shoes, like a coward, as he went the rest of the way down the row of cars to find the one he came here in. 

“Sam, I… is that Gabe’s car?”

Fishing the keys from his pocket, he glanced back. 

“Did you steal my brother’s car?” 

“I think what you meant to ask,” Sam cleared his throat, “the obviously better question here, is: ‘ _ do you wanna make out in my brother’s car’ _ , and my answer to that is yes.”

Nick’s laugh was loud enough it echoed off the concrete walls, and with a beautiful flash of embarrassment he looked away, biting his lip to hold back the sound. “God damn it. I-I love you, you know that?”

In fact, Sam didn’t know that. How on Earth was he possibly supposed to have known that? No one other than family had said those words to him in years and really, Nick was sort of awful at it in the best kinds of ways. 

The words took him by surprise in the same sort of way that they seemed to have taken his friend and the two of them stood there dumbly watching eachother for far, far too long in stunned silence. Awkwardly at first, then smiling, then laughing together at how terrible they both were at this sort of thing.  

Sam loved Nick, and it was nothing like he’d been told that love would be. Love didn’t make things nice. It ruined everything. It broke his heart and made a mess. 

But, maybe love wasn’t meant to be perfect. 

Snowflakes were perfect. 

Stars were perfect. 

But not them. They were here to ruin themselves, and break their own hearts, and to fall in love at the worst times, with the worst people, in the best kinds of ways. 

 

 


End file.
